Phoenix: Is the door opening?

Isn’t it nice to have some really good news to write about? Last week John Cummins TD announced that the cabinet had signed off on Bundle 2 of the Higher Education package, which includes the construction of the proposed new engineering building at SETU Waterford’s Cork Road campus. 

Mr Cummins has long indicated his determination to see this project, which was a very large stick to beat him and the Fine Gael party, over the line. Presumably he is a very happy man. Better late than never! 

So many words have been written about this much-needed development that it’s almost an anti-climax to learn that the contract will be awarded to BAM, of Children’s Hospital fame, with work to commence in Quarter 1 of 2025. 

One academic at SETU said that 15 years ago he had come from another third-level institution, where work and development was ceaseless, to Waterford, where the sound of a cement mixer was never heard or the sight of a tower crane was unimaginable.

The site for the new engineering building is on the Paddy Brown’s Road side of the SETU campus opposite the AIB building. It has been railed off for nearly 20 years, which in itself is unimaginable. It is weed overgrown. The long wait to get some new teaching space built for SETU in Waterford has hurt this city and it would be wrong not to say so. 

People can make their own minds' up about where the blame lies, today is not the day for that, but the university development, which was on the cusp of happening 20 years ago, is only now coming to fruition. 

A generation of progress was lost in politics and desperate unfairness. Systemic and political opposition to advancement of third-level education in Waterford was everywhere. 

A billion Euro was spent in creating TU Dublin in Grangegorman, monstrous sums were spent in UCC, UL, DCU, NUIG etc, while the roof leaked in Waterford. 

Someday, the story of what happened and why will be written. Did it happen because the system was allowed to get away with it? 

It’s very easy explain what the absence of 24/7 cardiology or other acute hospital service means to people, but the lack of development of a third-level facility is an arcane subject. 

What you never had, you never miss? 

Many people don’t relate it to their daily lives unless they have teenage children. Even then, it has been a constant that career development teachers in schools stressed “university” education over “Institute of Technology” education as if the latter was some way deficient. People want the word university on their degree parchment. But when you had kids going on open days to UCC, UL or UCD, looking at state-of-the-art new facilities, while WIT/SETU on the Cork Road was stuck in a time warp, it’s easy to see how decisions were made and the brain drain continued.

Anyway, the proposed new building, with an early commencement in 2025, may not come on line until 2028. That’s a long wait. The hope is that the deal to build it has not been compromised in any way, in terms of the proposed facilities and delivery date. It is also to be hoped that the development of the engineering building will be quickly followed by other new facilities on the old glass factory site and that new student accommodation will also happen. 

New high level degree courses in veterinary science and pharmacy show the way forward and have been welcomed by everyone. The university president, Prof Campbell and her management board, are determined that SETU will be the university of scale and quality that this region needs. The playing field is still not level in terms of course development in teaching and medicine for example. A borrowing framework to allow SETU act independently has still not been approved and the full roll out of professorial and departmental academic roles has some way to go. 

These can happen with favourable political and systemic backing. No one can say that the money is not available!

It is no secret that our city has lagged in development over the past 15 years. Investment drives development and the biggest spur to private investment is state investment. Private money follows public money and, North Quays aside, state funding was fairly thin on the ground around here. The main streams of state investment, which drive urban development, are in third level education, acute medicine, transport and Foreign Direct Investment. We have seen little enough of any of them in comparison with the tsunami of money directed elsewhere. 

Our Model 4 hospital, SETU, and FDI are still at the development stages in comparison to where we should be. Political voices deny that. They would, wouldn’t they? 

Now that the election has passed hard truths must be dealt with. Our situational reality has to be acknowledged and faced up to. No problem is ever solved until that happens and Waterford has a way to go to catch up.

The new surgical hub being built at UHW and a new engineering building at SETU are only a small start.

Waterford’s agenda can really only be properly tackled when the political will and backing are there. We saw that with Martin Cullen 20 years ago.

It is a hopeful sign that Mary Butler of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael’s John Cummins are on the negotiating teams for the new government. A seat at cabinet is a must and without it our voice won’t be heard. 

Failure to achieve a cabinet seat will be seen by most people in this city as a disaster and a sign that another miserable five years, with our noses pressed up against the glass, while we gaze at the prosperity of others, is on the cards. It would be intolerable. 

There is much work to be done. We don’t need parochialism or parish pump politics; we need fair delivery of those things, which have long been promised and which will support the development of this city under the Ireland 2040 National Development Plan. 

Both Mr Cummins and Ms Butler have made no secret of their cabinet ambitions. The aspirations of this city ride with them.