Phoenix: The facts speak

We complain endlessly about our city centre yet make no connection between cause and effect. Ineffective public representation leads to poor delivery. 

The South East Ecomonic Monitor (SEEM) has told us for a decade that our share of state investment, which drives private investment, is the lowest in the country and that low disposable income is a factor of relatively low paying jobs. 

Don’t people realise that everything is connected to everything else? Politicians calling for a local retail task force, when political failure is the root cause. When Digital closed in Galway in 1994 with the loss of 800 jobs the entire cabinet rightly decamped to the USA and brought back an entire sector of new employment in the medical devices industry. It employs, per Irish Times, 25,000 people in Galway. Suck on that number for a moment. 

When Waterford Glass closed in 2009 with the loss of 800 jobs...? 

Irish Times articles ad nauseam mention Cork, Limerick and Galway by rote, but rarely include Waterford, because government investment policy has separated us from our peers.

We live in a smashing historical city with tons of potential, but think about the dissatisfaction you hear. People on WLR FM moan about the dangers of the N25 Waterford to New Ross road where a dual carriageway was long promised and not a cent allocated. 

Not a government cent for our airport while we get political “promised future support” for the facility shamelessly flaunted on social media. 

The TUI protested outside SETU because in older buildings, roofs are leaking, mould grows, rooms are freezing and teaching facilities are woefully inadequate. 

Billions were spent on universities elsewhere in the past 15 years. 

Superb academic campuses built in Cork, Limerick and Galway. €1 billion in TU Dublin’s Grangegorman campus alone! 

Industrial development policy, where Waterford has not seen a major new business announcement in years? UHW among lowest in speed of cancer treatment? 24/7 cardiology still not implemented? An overall trend?

Must we roll over gratefully because a new engineering building at SETU and new surgical hub at UHW are being built? 

Go see the level of investment in education and acute medicine in Limerick and Galway and then tell us. The difference is shocking. 

People are not stupid, locals know. We want genuine fair play. 

Government can’t throw the North Quays blanket, that political cloak of invisibility, over everything and expect us to recede happily into urban obscurity. Essentially, a few bob arrives after years of underinvestment and we must cheer?

The issues raised by the TUI in a public protest at SETU Waterford last week are the product of zero investment. The last new building at WIT/SETU was planned in 1998 and opened in 2006. Two proposed buildings were cancelled by Fine Gael in 2011. 

Meanwhile, a massive development programme commenced in Carlow IT. Six new buildings were erected in a town less than an hour from six universities in Dublin. Not a block was laid in Waterford. 

We blindly refuse to understand how this impacts our children’s future and the social and economic development of our city going forward, so we elect people whose prime loyalty is to their parties Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Sinn Féin? Is that sensible? We need TDs who speak for us and whose party’s support us. Don’t watch what they say, watch what they do!

SETU management responded to the TUI protest by outlining, “A 13,000 m² Engineering, Computing and General Teaching Building on the Cork Road campus, due for completion in 2028 is being built. Approval granted and design work underway for the retrofit of the second floor of the Engineering and Science Building, for a Government funded 2,000 m² Pharmacy and Veterinary Medicine facility at the Glassworks site, for a 1000m² Veterinary Medicine facility at Kildalton and permission given for a 10,000 m² One Health Building at the Glassworks site to progress to the next development stage.” 

Great, when will building works start? SETU Waterford is playing catch-up after 20 years without investment. Where is the urgency, the exceptional funding to repair the damage done? 

SETU Waterford’s original 1970s buildings are prosaic and tired. This must impact CAO student choice. SETU/WIT was eviscerated over two decades while Cork, Limerick and Galway legacy universities had an investment bonanza. The word Waterford was pettily erased. 

SETU has no professorial grade and still awaits ministerial sign off on five possible professorships. Maynooth University’s Professor Ian Marder announced last week the immediate hiring of six new professors, but SETU management won’t rock the boat. 

Clearly, our university is distinctly different to the legacy universities. Is that fair?

The new 2026 HSE Capital Plan (what they hope to build) was published last week. Comparison with the 2025 Plan speaks for itself.

HSE projects have four stages, appraisal, design feasibility, detailed design/planning and construction. 

Capital Plan 2025 listed nine Waterford projects. Surgical hub - construction, New UHW ward block “going to detailed design in 2025”, multi-storey car park at UHW - appraisal, Older persons hub at St Otteran’s - design feasibility, Children’s Therapy (Touching Hearts) hub at St Otteran’s - design feasibility, UHW Adult Mental Health Unit - design feasibility, UHW two-storey lab extension - construction, UHW New Out Patients Department - appraisal, new ambulance base - appraisal. 

Capital Plan 2026 (€1,327m in total, with €54.7m for Waterford) has eight local projects. UHW surgical hub - construction, UHW path lab extension - construction, new UHW bed block - design feasibility (didn’t move to detailed design), UHW multi-storey car park - design feasibility, older persons hub St Otteran’s - design feasibility, Adult Mental Health Unit UHW - appraisal, children’s hub St Otteran’s - design feasibility, new ambulance base - appraisal.

In 2025 we were supposed to have the new UHW bed block “in a seamless progression from planning to shovel ready and into delivery.” It didn’t. A new OPD was described by Minister Butler in June 2024 as “a key project for UHW…proposed two-floor vertical extension over the existing Outpatient Department…really ambitious development will progress to detailed design. Those familiar with the hospital will be cognisant of the significance of this development which will provide much needed additional capacity." This vital project has been dropped.

No UHW acute project was moved from design feasibility to detailed design over the past year, meaning no project is at the planning/tender stage. Is that fair? Just check out the other Model 4 hospitals. Our project logjam remains unbroken.