Phoenix: Eds and Meds

In a recent robust Dáil exchange between Matt Shanahan and the Taoiseach, Mr. Harris referenced budget and staff increases in UHW. 

These were a welcome part of a national ramping up of staff at all acute hospitals. 

He referenced the Dunmore Wing, which was completed before the present government came into power and also mentioned a new OPD despite the fact that the building near the Emergency Dept. is a prefab on temporary foundations. 

There was no mention of the proposed vital extension to the pathology lab, or the proper OPD to be built on top of the main hospital. Both these projects were ready to go in February 2022 and were announced (being priced by a contractor already on site) to a meeting of Waterford Oireachtas members by hospital management. 

Neither of these acute projects has progressed. 

The Taoiseach’s assertion of capital expenditure at UHW of €69.81 million in the life of this government does not match the official HSE account of €31.8 million. It sounded like smoke screen stuff, with everything thrown in!

When the debate turned to SETU, the one bright spot was that Mr. Harris committed himself to the proposed engineering building PPP. 

He was emphatic that this government promised a Technological University and has delivered it! We did it, he said. Really? The purchase of the glass site and provision of a €9.5 million Tech Uni advancement fund... over five years this amounts to €2 million per annum. 

He referenced a €13.6 million research fund, but again this is competitively open to the five Tech Uni's. 

One can imagine SETU getting €2.5 million from that. Neither sum will set the world on fire or make up for the damage done to SETU/WIT by failing to provide a single new building in nearly 20 years. 

No new courses or funding for student accommodation has been provided. Activity on the glass site is the work of private developer, Frisby Construction. 

Meanwhile, the traditional universities, in an orgy of building and course expansion, increased their student numbers exponentially, while Tech Uni enrolment stalled. Mr. Harris forced WIT into a tragic merger with Carlow IT to progress his own leadership ambitions. 

Regardless of what anyone says, the margarine spread of campuses and suggestion that almost every place is a university town, is dangerous rhetoric. Waterford city, the oldest city in the land, has been humiliated in this process and detached from its peer cities, as Mr. Harris has failed to back up his promises with real money. 

When he resorted to mentioning the Flood Relief Scheme, Fire Station, court house and Greenway as evidence of his government’s goodwill to Waterford, I reached into the thatch for the pike.

Meanwhile, in a recent Seanad debate, Minister Anne Rabbitte of the Dept. of Health delivered this pearl. “Promises made to Waterford by the Government have not been delivered.” 

The normal people of Waterford could have told her or Senator Cummins that. For many years this column has been banging on about HSE capital development in Waterford. 

For some reason, Waterford education and medicine projects always seem to be stuck in treacle. The eds and meds projects, which future proof this city. 

People will recall the late Cllr Davy Walsh and others protesting for 10 years outside St Patrick’s before a new hospital was built. 

People will recall the furore over the UHW mortuary, when consultants brought graphic evidence into the public arena before a skeptical Taoiseach Varadkar would even accept the situation. 

All health projects are delivered by the HSE Estates office, based in Kilkenny, which has certainly not gone out on a limb for Waterford, but the final say on all health (and educational) capital expenditure is with cabinet. 

Government political strategists don’t give a hoot about how deserving Waterford is of new facilities, their calculations are based purely on possible seat gains. As evidence, a new purpose built multidisciplinary early intervention and respite care centre for children, planned for a site at St Otteran’s, is on the HSE Capital Plan since 2014. Ten years without a stir. 

Ms Butler persists in creating Chinese walls of confusion and obfuscation on local airwaves when questioned about the HSE’s own data, which shows the Waterford spending deficit. The Seanad debate allowed Minister Rabbitte to make excuses on the record for her colleague Minister Mary Butler. Oh we’re trying our best, but those nasty civil servants block us at every hand's turn. Surely the politician’s job is to unblock?

Every cent of HSE capital spending is passed by cabinet, a cabinet composed of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Green ministers. As a junior minister, with little experience of large administration, Ms Butler has been failed by her own officials. 

Her own stated priority of a new psychiatric unit at UHW has not advanced to planning permission despite being years on the HSE Capital Plan. 

Ms Butler has made many announcements about various projects, including expanded cardiology services, without any visible progress. Her statement on WLR on November 30 last, that a builder’s hut was in situ for a vital extension of the path lab and that work would commence in quarter 1 of 2024, was sadly untrue. 

Six months later there is no sign of action. 

How Micheál Martin and Stephen Donnelly can actually look the poor woman in the face is beyond me. 

Readers should not forget, we have a coalition government. Collective responsibility is the order of the day. M/S Butler, Cummins and O Cathasaigh are in this together and really must provide a rational political explanation for delays in Waterford capital projects.

Last week came a wonderful announcement from Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien of €9 million URDF funding for upgrading of older property in Waterford, which ties in exactly with the National Development Plan. The FF minister, who is a Dubliner, also released the funding for the North Quays. 

He is the only one with a positive understanding of Waterford City. 

In the meantime, if people want to see the reality of funding in eds and meds they should take themselves off to Cork, Limerick or Galway this summer and compare the physical investment in hospitals and universities in those cities with what is available in Waterford. 

I did the tour last year. The experience is chastening.