Phoenix: Why are we waiting?

In recent weeks there have been announcements from government of various sums for local projects. 

€9.1 million for active travel schemes in the county, €546,000 for core sports partnership funding and so on. 

These are all very welcome and support the fabric of civil society in the country and in general are distributed on some sort of equitable apolitical basis. 

A different set of guidelines comes into play when major capital investment in the things, which underpin the status of this city, acute medicine, third-level education or Foreign Direct Investment are involved. 

Politics drives these decisions and cabinet influence is vital. Waterford has learned that the hard way. 

In September 2018, Simon Harris announced a second cath lab for UHW without which 24/7 emergency cardiology cannot happen. In March 2025 the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll McNeill announced, to widespread local acclaim, that 24/7 cardiology would be provided in UHW, subject to ongoing recruitment of specialist staff. 

After almost a year-long delay and CUH/RTÉ propaganda shows suggesting it’s an hour from Waterford to Cork, a feeling of pull-back from the ministerial announcement has emerged.

However, Minister John Cummins told the Waterford News & Star that it is expected to transition to a 24/7 service by the end of June, and that if it can be done earlier with agreement of rosters etc, it will. 

It is somewhat surprising that Minister Cummins and not Minister Butler (Dept. of Health) made this unequivocal statement. Matt Shanahan, who was to the fore as a TD on the 24/7 issue, posed reasonable on-line questions: “It has been the position of the HSE for years that a 24/7 rota could not be sustained with less than seven consultant posts in Waterford. UHW is now expected to carry out service schedule with six! What changed? The ‘many moving parts’ relate to recruitment of cardiac physiologists, cardiac radiographers, cardiac technicians and cardiac nurses - these positions are purely a function of providing adequate resources - what budget is being provided?” 

St Vincent’s Hospital Dublin apparently once provided 24/7 cardiology on an ad hoc basis without a full staff complement and eventually abandoned it. Surely when UHW does provide 24/7, it must have the same staff complement and budgetary provision as the Limerick and Galway hospitals providing that service. Anything else is inequitable and a hostage to fortune.

Meanwhile, in the land of gravy, the Examiner tells us that government has just given €100 million to the UCC/Tyndall Institute for expansion. That follows €93 million the week before, for refurbishment of the Crawford Gallery. Taoiseach Micheál Martin is not behind the door when it comes to dropping €100 million on his home town. 

The Cork money tsunami is not to advance projects to the planning stage, as with our hoped for new veterinary and pharmacy college facilities. No, this is the whole 'go ahead and build it' deal. Is the government message to us that we should be thankful for what we get? 

Waiting for anything from Mr Martin and his acolytes has become quite embarrassing for our local TDs. There is a strange silence from health Minister Mary Butler. Running around as mother hen, chief whip for Micheál Martin, while constituency project priorities are long-fingered, is classic political diversion. 

Minister Butler well knows that the HSE National Capital Plan contains many Waterford acute, mental health and community projects. Some of them, including a much-needed Children’s Hub, are stuck over a decade on the list. 

Her own stated priority for a new 50-bed Acute Mental Health Unit at UHW is on the list for years, yet in the past year neither this nor indeed any Waterford project advanced to the planning permission stage. Not one. 

No project can be built without planning permission, so we are in a classic bind. When current UHW projects, the new surgical hub and expanded pathology lab, are completed in the next couple of months, nothing new is prepped to go ahead. Were planning permission for a new bed block, multi-storey car park or OPD now applied for, it could be next year at a minimum before any project could go to tender. 

This is the enemy of real progress for UHW as a Model 4 hospital performing at the highest level and could have serious consequences. 

We need determined action now, not the “deny, delay, defend” politics we’ve had. HSE projects go through many stages before construction, so the failure of any HSE Waterford project to advance to planning permission in the past year underlines either a lack of nous or political ineptitude. 

Even Sinn Féin has cottoned on to the appallingly low, comparative level of government capital spending in this region.

On the wider role of our city, we are taken at our own estimate. Small things matter. It’s not rocket science. 

Cleanliness and lack of litter go without saying and the council does an excellent job. Whoever recently ensured that white lines, yellow boxes and other road markings were renewed should be congratulated. It speaks of care and pride. A Clock Tower stopped for two years does quite the opposite. Public lighting is poor and the plethora of poorly-designed lamp posts and the persistence of overhead utility cables degrade many historic buildings and streetscapes. 

The newly rendered City Hall on The Mall is resplendent and should get a brick colour lime-wash to reflect the fact that the building was originally designed and built in brick with limestone details. 

It is utterly disgraceful that the council-owned, lovely terrace of six shops on Parade Quay, is waiting 10 years for refurbishment. 

The ruins of Stephen Street and New Street are heartbreaking and they give succour to others in the private sector who won’t invest or maintain property. How the ugly Ardree Hotel ruin is allowed to sit there, dominating the city, as a purely speculative play, is beyond me. The sad condition of much of the 20-year-old buildings in Railway Square also adds an air of blight.

The city can only really prosper when people act in a united fashion. Attracting business, investment, tourism and life to the city in these increasingly fractious times is all our concern.