Phoenix: The seven-year itch

Six months to the day after it was announced that the cabinet had signed off on the new engineering building for SETU Waterford, not a sod has been shifted on the weed overgrown site at the Cork Road campus. 

The delay is gone beyond words. 

Nothing like this has been seen before in the modern history of Irish third-level education. 

It shames Fine Gael in particular and Fianna Fáil by extension. 

The delay is outrageous. Nothing has been built there for over two decades and it now has all the marks of a politically-driven policy to suppress Waterford city, which should justify a public inquiry. That is, of course, had we anyone in the Dáil or in opposition who might question such a thing, but then depending on Waterford’s two Sinn Féin TDs to do anything about third-level spending seems impossible. 

Mr Cullinane and Mr McGuinness appear to have no interest? 

Are they satisfied to all intents and purposes that the children of Waterford must suffer from educational apartheid and low opportunity? 

Did 20,000 people in Waterford vote for this abject silence? Having voted for leadership, are they instead misled up the garden path?

In February 2018 when the Ireland 2040 plan was launched by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the buzzwords were “balanced regional development”. 

The Project Ireland 2040 and the National Planning Framework (NPF) “focus on creating a balanced strategy for regional growth. This framework is designed to improve urban areas while strengthening rural communities, ensuring that growth is spread evenly across the country.” 

The Irish Times (Ronan McGreevy) reported on February 16, 2018: “The National Planning Framework (NPF) will decide how to achieve balanced regional development. It will prioritise growth in the major cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford.” 

Seven years have passed since those worthy ideals were published. Yes, the North Quays has progressed, but in the fiercely competitive world of future development enablers, not a brick has been laid or a sod turned at SETU Waterford. 

No new FDI industry of scale has been developed in Waterford and major industry has been diverted from Waterford due to the lack of IDA infrastructure. 

UHW has seen some movement but lags behind its Model 4 hospital peers in terms of capital infrastructure. 

Last year almost €100 million was doled out to the Port of Cork to facilitate development of new facilities at Ringaskiddy. 

Meanwhile, ships are queuing up in Dunmore East awaiting discharge because not a penny has been granted in years to develop extra quay space at the Port of Waterford. 

Last week, just to rub salt into our wounds, work commenced on a new €80 million library at Galway University and fabulous new facilities opened at ATU and TUD, in Athlone and Blanchardstown. 

Like the refugees in the film Casablanca, “We wait and we wait and we wait...!” 

A truly extraordinary situation has been created, which will be apparent when the review of the National Development Plan (NDP) is published in July. 

The government is in a race against time to progress some development at SETU Waterford, other than the purchase of a brownfield site at Kilbarry, to show compliance with the aims of its own NDP. 

When future historians research the development of Waterford city in the early 21st century they will be shocked by what has been done to WIT/SETU. They will also pinpoint Fine Gael as the party most directly involved since its return to power in 2011, when the influence of Phil Hogan and James O’Reilly were apparent, with, latterly, Simon Harris, previous Minister for Health and Further Education, as a pivotal figure. 

He assumed the leadership of Fine Gael by courting party cadres in Carlow /Kilkenny /Wexford to the detriment of Waterford. 

Development of third-level facilities in Dublin has exploded, with €1 billion being spent on the TUD Grangorman campus alone. 

A street of new third-level facilities has been developed in Carlow, new university cities have sprung up in Cork, Limerick and Galway, those other regional cities mentioned in 2018, while WIT/SETU has been cynically starved of maintenance funds and capital development.

The NPF remit is supposed to enshrine apolitical development of state facilities and equitable apportionment of state resources. The recent installation of the new Clock Tower bridge and ongoing North Quays development, the construction of the UHW surgical hub in Maypark Lane, the liberal support grants for development of arts, sports and community facilities, support for housing and apartment development (which have been very successful in Waterford), all highlight unbiased government delivery of investment and comply with the aims of national plans. 

It is extremely pointed that the local deficit in government funding applies most keenly to vital third-level facilities, acute hospital investment, Waterford Airport, IDA Foreign Direct Investment and Port of Waterford facilities. 

These strategic deficits highlight a very serious compliance failure by departmental and/or political systems with the aims of the NPF. What good are national plans in these circumstances?

Last week, Frisby Developments unveiled their plans for the magnificent, multimillion Euro new Glassworks office facility at Kilbarry, next door to SETU. This strategic development site is now being reimagined as an Enterprise and Innovation Campus. 

An 80,000 sq ft new building, on the site of the old Glass offices, is an eye-opener and a credit to the Frisby family. This is what local leadership looks like. 

The investment for the project came entirely from Frisby Developments, although Ireland’s Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) has come on board in a joint venture designed to facilitate further investment of third level and allied economic activity at the new “Building 1 Glassworks”. That should be interesting. 

SETU has already acquired 20 acres from Frisby to facilitate the development of new Pharmacy and Veterinary course buildings. It is extraordinary that the Glassworks building could be developed by local private enterprise on a difficult site requiring remediation, while SETU Waterford has waited over two decades for any new building on its Cork Road campus. 

This Frisby development has put it up to government to stop the disgraceful suppression of third level facilities in Waterford and give the city the university it has long sought and needed, to halt a devastating brain drain and copper-fasten the future of our city and the South East region.