Phoenix: 'UHW is still the most underfunded, understaffed...Model 4 hospital'

An air of dissatisfaction has stalked the city for quite some time. You can see it on social media posts where a section of people are unhappy with almost everything.

“The council are fools, the shops are awful, the traffic is terrible, the parking is cat, the one way system is shocking” etc., you name it, it’s being said about this small city. 

If you track urban issues on YouTube and elsewhere, you can find the same stuff written about most towns or cities in Ireland, the UK, and interestingly in Germany. Facebook users in New Ross, for example believe everyone buys everything in Waterford. Some people in Waterford think that the grass is greener almost everywhere else. 

Of course, things here could be better in many ways, but my observed reality from the sheer volume of delivery vans in our neighborhood, is that internet shopping is an all devouring monster. Every time I see that monstrous Amazon “fulfillment centre” (the most ironic description) on the M7, I reflect sadly in memory of the thousands of small local businesses across Ireland that this ‘gravestone’ commemorates.

On a wider local note there is palpable dissatisfaction with getting things done by both government and local business. The delays to development of UHW have been written about here ad nauseam. Ministerial promises have been continually shown to be worthless. UHW is still the most underfunded, understaffed etc., etc. Model 4 hospital in the land. 

Legions of promises have been made and broken. Delay in development at SETU/WIT is almost biblical. The last teaching building to be built there started in 1998 and was completed in 2006. Promises to build a new engineering building are seen as unbelievable in a process which started in 2009 and shows no sign of being finalised. New FDI job announcements have almost vanished except for two very small new additions in the past 18 months. 

At Cartamundi, 234 jobs vanished without a blink from government. The reply to any expression of concern about anything from the Airport to the WRC Rally disappointment and everything in between is the North Quays, the North Quays, the North Quays. Great and thanks very much, but…the rest of our development agenda?

Why do we find it so hard to get government to deliver? Has local business confidence been damaged by the persistent feeling that Waterford hasn’t government backing in the same way as Galway? Has anyone ever heard of a protest march in Galway where people took to the streets to demand some facility or investment from government? Not in my lifetime anyway. 

Frisby Construction has broken the duck with development at the old Glass offices, but otherwise local business is so risk averse, while clinging to shamefully derelict property, as to defy description in a chicken and egg situation. Why is that? 

The confidence engendered while Martin Cullen was a cabinet minister elicited huge local investment, but now there is some official dynamic at work seemingly intent on delaying or preventing delivery to Waterford, think 24/7 cardiology, SETU engineering building or UHW capital plan, in a way that does not affect other regional cities. It’s actually preposterous. 

Some suggest it results from the financial crash of 2008/10 when the IMF troika allegedly instructed government that this country only needed three development nodes in Dublin, Cork and Galway. The tenure of Michael Noonan as Minister for Finance ensured that Limerick was added to that trio, but we were left to the tender mercies of the 2011 Enda Kenny government. 

Whatever is going on, even government politicians regularly admit that it exists. Waterford has a particular difficulty in attracting capital spending from governments led by Fine Gael. We’ve heard the promises, we’ve read the letters, but still inordinate delay is the default position.

The German composer Max Reger once wrote: “I am sitting in the smallest room in the house. I have your letter before me. In a moment soon it will be behind me.” 

That’s how many people react to government “promises” in Waterford. We have learned to our cost that ministerial “promises” are often economical with the truth or just plain mendacious. Can we not actually just get something done, get something started? 

Does anyone, even those involved (who must be despairing of progress at this late stage in the electoral cycle), actually believe this stuff? Will the next ploy be the pre-election wail of crocodile tears “we tried our best to deliver Waterford projects, but were unable to do so because the Greens, DPER, or government procurement rules blocked us. But never fear, elect us again and everything will be fine!” Are we naïve enough to swallow that?

The overarching feeling of discontent is perhaps exemplified by the four year tenure of Taoiseach Harris in the Dept. of Further Education. Fifteen years since anything was built at WIT and we still await a new engineering building. Several other promised WIT buildings are at project gateway 2, the final stage before proceeding to actual construction. 

Did Harris merely continue the delaying process that Fine Gael has continually deployed on Waterford projects? Is it in their handbook under the heading ‘County Towns in the South East’ where every move that party makes, from the amalgamation of county and city to the destruction of our two local VEC organisations and transfer of their management team to Wexford is politically, rather than strategically, motivated? Despite being the south-east’s, Ireland 2040 nominated economic driver, can anything be done to favour Waterford, (North Quays excepted), which upsets Fine Gael loyalists in the Wexford/Carlow/Kilkenny bloc?

Meanwhile, a planned new airport in Arklow, which would never have arisen if Waterford airport was developed, has surfaced to the excitement of the Dublin metro commentariat.

Let’s see does Taoiseach Harris support that! It’s always amazing that delay is our fault, the airport board, the business plan, the financial arrangements, while the delay and endless process inflicted on us by minsters and their Sir Humphreys is never questioned.

Our docile government reps seem unable to step outside their party box and make a stand for Waterford, even when the impact on local commerce is so apparent. That must change.