I note in a comment to my earlier blog and indeed in the local press, Senator Paudie Coffey (pictured above) has expressed his unhappiness with my blog last week concerning Fine Gael leader Enda Kennys comment on the designation of WIT as a University.
Enda said that (and I'm paraphrasing) once in government they would trigger a mechanism to have the case for WITs designation as a University examined. Now this seemed to me - and many others - to be a clawing back of the previously stated and much heralded (locally) policy adopted by Fine Gael, that if in Government, they would designate WIT as a university.
I gather from the statements by both Senator Coffey and Senator Maurice Cummins, that this policy has not changed. That being so, then I have to ask why Enda was so ambiguous in his statement which clearly in my opinion sent out the wrong message.
However I do accept Senator Coffeys assertion and I must add, in fact that I have the greatest of admiration for Paudie and in my opinion he would make a most able TD for this constituency. Paudie is very clued in on local issues, very vocal, very pro-active and articulates his message very clearly.
So while I am happy to accept that the FG policy has not changed I wonder why then Enda sent such a weak message? Clearly - and some of the history is fairly laid out by Senator Cummins in his letter to the News & Star this week - we have been led a merry dance on this issue for many a long year and not entirely by Fianna Fail either it must be said.
That being said, due to much lobbying locally, FG did adopt the designation of WIT as Party Policy. For it to actually proceed though, it would have to make it into a Programme for Government post the next election (assuming as predicted that FG are part of that Government), which one must be hopeful for considering that the Labour Party also claim to support this designation.
Although it will be recalled that the move from WRTC to WIT by a FG/Lab coalition did not exactly deliver what we all were led to believe that it would at the time but we won't re-hash old arguments. Let us hope that the FG and Labour TD's locally and their parties nationally mean what they say and that what they say is what we all understand it to mean; namely that WIT will be designated as a University with the autonomy, branding and finance that that designation brings and that there will not be another fudge as there was the last time which effectively tried to please everyone and ended up pleasing no-one!
Finally I make no apology for having a finely tuned antenna on this issue. Yes, I am uber-sensitive about it and why wouldn't I be? A University is the crucial piece of regional infrastructure that the South East desperately needs in our efforts to end the educational and jobs apartheid that we have suffered for decades. We have been messed about on it several times over many years - for much longer than I am involved - and anywhere I see a threat or potential threat or any ambiguity, I will call it.
That being said, the biggest threat of all comes from our lackadaisical current Government which has placed obstacle after obstacle in the way of WITs just claim for University status. They have yet to produce the report from the Strategy Group for Higher Education. I hear now that the report will be with the Minister by the end of the month and will not be published until September.
We await its deliberations with bated breath and hope that it will not merely provide the government with further cover to both do nothing and extend the time before which we will have our University.
However I do not wish to be negative in advance of knowing its contents so until we see it (or hear the leaks) I can but express the desire that they have been convinced, as were the many International experts who examined our case, of the validity of WITs claims for University status.
As Dr Jim Port put it (the Governments own appointed expert) "WIT is already operating at University level". We all know it. Will our work be rewarded? Time will tell.
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