Phoenix: Enough already

So the Department of Transport, which tried for years to undermine Waterford Airport, is to progress the probably €18 billion Metro North project in Dublin to tender stage. A billion Euro per kilometre, for every kilometre from Swords to Charlemont near Ranelagh on Dublin’s south side. Vanity written large instead of sensible railway links to Dublin Airport combined with Luas expansion to places like Swords. 

Ireland’s plutocratic claque will do whatever is necessary to keep the big party going in Dublin regardless of the impact on the provision of capital infrastructure to the less politically favoured parts of the country. Just remember that the building under construction at SETU Cork Road is the (hard to believe) first new third level building in Waterford in 20 years.

Meanwhile…last week, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne, announced a €409 million national investment package to support nearly 120 town planning and urban regeneration projects across every local authority in Ireland. Local minister John Cummins, who is probably dogged about such things, delivered a reasonable piece (€22.65 million) of it to Waterford. We need every cent of it. 

This scheme is one of those national initiatives where everyone eventually gets a bit, like a fire station, courthouse or traffic calming. Waterford’s problem is getting funding for the larger and more expensive developments in the (competitive) vital acute health and third-level education sectors, which underline the status of the city. This is where real political power is needed.

Anyway, the urban regeneration projects at O’Connell Street and in Lady Lane in the city are exciting and will refurbish important buildings. It helps to have your project ready to roll, with all the necessary design works and permissions in place. 

Minister Browne is hopeful that the projects will commence before September 2027. Our local council has an unfortunate record for one reason or another, in executing these projects. Announcements are made, Parade Quay, Lady Lane, Thomas Street, Summerland, The Glen etc but work does not start. 

In a country which now takes four years to deliver a new house, that’s not surprising, but we must do better. Waterford simply has too much dereliction in the older parts of the city. It has to be tackled vigorously and our council is apparently rapidly moving in that direction. 

New Street, Stephen Street and Browne’s Lane just disgrace us. There is no other way to say it. Imagine a prospective investor finding his/her way to that area? Was the war damage never repaired? 

Councillors should be climbing the walls over the state of it, but you know, there are no votes in empty areas and drift prevails as one year becomes two, becomes 10 or 20. Fáilte Ireland is talking about developing an attraction of scale for Waterford, fair enough, but could we have an all-out campaign to restore, refurbish and redevelop all empty sites in the old city. 

The Ardree Hotel is a national disgrace for 20 years. Areas like Jenkins Lane and Exchange Street are intolerable in a city with a history such as ours. The city is carrying ugly scars and wounds to its built fabric that have turned into bleeding long-term disabilities. This cannot go on.

It was interesting to hear David Cullinane and Damien Tiernan on local radio both decry unfulfilled government announcements (a children’s hub part-funded by Happy Hearts at St Otteran’s is on the go for over a decade and has not been built) for Waterford, particularly but not exclusively in the health sector, which then disappear off the radar. While a seven-storey 400-space car park, built by Waterford firm Tom O'Brien Construction, is completed at Wexford General Hospital, a similar facility at UHW, where parking availability is atrocious, has been sidelined. 

A new Outpatients Deptartment, new ward block, new multi-storey car park among others were announced for UHW by Minister Butler, but have no priority. These were ready to go to tender when the present government, of which Ms Butler is the chief whip, entered office. She has offered nothing only excuses when questioned on local radio about this carry on and that is a dreadful indictment of Fianna Fáil.

The failure to provide appropriate infrastructure at UHW has real-life consequences. UHW with 2,850 staff has 5,933 people waiting for inpatient appointments and 45,911 waiting for outpatient appointments. CUH with 4,800 staff has 1,991 awaiting inpatient appointments and 22,385 awaiting outpatient appointments. 

This is a lunatic comparison, which in any reasonable country would see UHW designated for emergency expansion of both staff and facilities. Instead, national media is full of reports of a CUH crisis. 

Harry McGee wrote in the Irish Times (Aug 19th) that CUH sources say the hospital has “260 staff above its approved headcount and needs at least 1,000 extra, 130 of those immediately”! 

Something is rotten and if this was the private sector, CUH, the long-time beneficiary of huge political support, would be downsized. The silence about UHW, a hospital with excellent performance metrics, which never has patients on trolleys, is deafening. Anecdotally, everything at UHW is now conveniently on hold pending the completion of a new hospital Development Control Plan. Nothing will happen until that is finished. WRH had an ambitious one of those in 2008, but by the time our turn came for funding, the financial crash happened. Have we learned any lessons from that I wonder?

Local councillors rightly ask where our city should be and what it needs in 2050, but the real questions are about appropriate state investment (which attracts private funding) to create the city of 2050 that will have held or exceeded its current position in Ireland’s urban rankings. We were once the fourth city of this country until surpassed by Galway about 30 years ago. They had a politically driven tsunami of state investment, resources and FDI jobs while we scramble and fight for every cent. Voters should remember that there is currently no government project planning application or tender for Waterford in road, rail, airport, acute or community medicine, third-level education or Foreign Direct Investment, while the government prepares to spend €1bn per kilometre on Metro North (18km in total). This is an abysmal state of affairs.