Phoenix: Recherche du temps perdu etc?

Every day we drive out the Cork Road and pass the SETU campus with the big SETU signage on the gable end of a prominent building. 

Every day, I think, we were robbed. We are now the only city in this republic without a third-level institution carrying its name. 

No University College for us, like University of Galway, or Limerick University or University College Cork or TCD, UCD, DCU, TUD, or RCSI University Dublin or Maynooth University. 

Latterly, Dundalk Institute of Technology has been renamed Dundalk University College. Not that it matters, the government thinks we wouldn’t notice anyway.

As we come to the end of 2026 we recall that along with the Institute of Technology, Carlow, WIT was dissolved on May 1, 2022, and was succeeded by SETU. 

It is interesting to note from Google search that the “Parent organization: Institute of Technology, Carlow” is there for all to see. Not that we would mind anyway. 

Not that anyone in SETU would correct the online record, or remember back to the halcyon days of almost being a stand-alone university, when in May 1997 WRTC was elevated to become Waterford Institute of Technology, or the days of Martin Cullen when new buildings appeared by the year, one after another and the status of independent university was so near, you could taste it. 

We were accused of hubris in the early noughties and the cry went up in the region that “Waterford must learn to share”. That culminated in what I call the “Sack of WIT”. The evisceration of a fine institution. The destruction of management and careers for the political satisfaction of those who could not bear the thought of a Waterford university.

Those in the Fine Gael-led government post 2011 who cancelled the development of a new WIT business school and a new engineering school must be happy now. Maybe we weren’t entitled to it at all? 

Two ministers from the south east, Phil Hogan and Brendan Howlin, can forever boast that during their time in government, the independent university this city and the south east needed did not emerge. All WIT did for Wexford and Kilkenny was to ensure thousands of their young people graduated with excellent degrees. 

It often seems that the very fact that youngsters from these areas came to Waterford City and did well out of it sparked an envious reaction. Instead of building on excellence for the region, as obviously happened in Limerick, it demanded that established excellence be curtailed. 

For the record, I went to see the Carlow campus. Five or six new buildings were built in the past 15 years, as well as a new management services building. Work on major new building is ongoing. 

We were fed the line that all this development was funded by Carlow IT out of its own financial resources. This was the waffle to explain why not a cent was spent by Fine Gael on the WIT campus for 15 years between 2011 and 2025. Did they wish to grind the place into the ground? 

Someday the truth will out about the witch hunts, reviews and investigations which were used to derail our hopes. They all came to nothing but people’s lives were ruined. Someday the truth will out.

Hopefully for all our sakes, SETU will continue the good work of WIT and thrive under the leadership of Prof Veronica Campbell. Hopefully it’s a case of onwards and upwards. 

Mature reflection will forever remind us that the oldest city in Ireland was treated miserably. Let those who are happy with that rejoice in what happened. I certainly won’t. We were robbed!

And, the Gaslighting continues. Sinn Fein has copped onto the South East Economic Monitor (SEEM) report, which analyses the local economy in detail. Sure who’d be interested in that? When raising the issue directly with the Taoiseach in the Dáil, Deputy Conor McGuinness said “the data highlights a growing imbalance in national investment priorities, with Waterford bearing the brunt of underinvestment.” 

The South East has 9% of the population but only receives 1.8% of major capital spending. If this is wrong, tell us. The dogs in the street say we are not getting a fair shot.

More worrying is the Facebook post from Minister Cummins, “Waterford records third highest net job growth in Ireland”, which on reading, resolved into a news story that in jobs supported by Enterprise Ireland, Waterford had the third highest rate of net growth in the country in 2025. In a bad year for Enterprise Ireland, (Irish Times) “New jobs supported by Enterprise Ireland (EI) hits lowest level post-pandemic,” Mr Cummins does not quote the actual number of “net job growth”. Was it 10, 20 or even 50 jobs? While welcoming all job growth, there’s a big difference between the headline and the details. Could we be told the figures for IDA Ireland supported jobs, which, according to SEEM, declined in Waterford last year?

Meanwhile, between expensive bike shelters and security huts, a new €68 million Dublin bus and cycle route from Clontarf to the city centre opened in November 2024, providing cycling facilities and bus infrastructure along a 2.7km route. That’s €25,000 a meter, every meter, every step! 

The project also included replacement of water mains. 

The Independent reported recently that the same area is to be dug up for a new €25 million water main. Nearly €100 million on a mile and a half of road, while we got shit-kicked for a €12 million runway extension! 

Waterford needs to wake up and smell the coffee. After a decade of huge tax revenue inflows, Waterford related state spending, which all research recognises as the essential primer for private investment, has been quite slender.

When was the last IDA/FDI capital intense, new, company set up in Waterford? Galway has 25,000 people in the medical devices industry. Cork has 6,500 in Apple alone. The North Quays, surgical hub and new SETU engineering building are last government projects and hardly amount to a treasure trove. 

Where’s the new stuff, new investment, new projects? Long-fingered again, until the dying days of this government, to ensure we are permanently stuck on the hind teat?