There is a gap between the rhetoric of the NDP and actual capital expenditure

Submission by Cllr Mary Roche on the National Development Plan Review to Renew - submitted 28/01/21

ISSUE (i) REGIONAL INVESTMENT (SPECIFICALLY IN RELATION TO THE SOUTH EAST)

UNIVERSITY/TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY

There is a gap between the rhetoric of the National Development Plan and the governments actual capital expenditure. The National Planning Framework commits to supporting double the growth rate in regional cities relative to Dublin. However the projects funded in Dublin represent over 60% of the committed funding with all other regions receiving less than a fair share based on their populations especially the South East region. This starkly demonstrates the growing regional inequity in Ireland and in a practical way why the South East economy is unlikely to close the gap with the rest of the country until alternative, more equitable measures actually reflecting the stated aims of the government are adopted. Until the reality reflects the rhetoric, in short. 

This review is an opportunity for just such rebalancing if it is grasped. 

Notwithstanding the performance of indigenous companies in the South East and success in attracting and sustaining FDI in these industries, the SE economy has only partially participated in the knowledge-led transformation of the Irish economy, with around 60% per capita GDP, 56% of per capita IDA supported jobs, 45% per capita income tax returns, persistently higher unemployment, and lower labour market participation. Though the potential exists for much higher performance, and despite concentrated effort on the part of regional enterprise, the region’s economy has significantly under-performed compared to the state since 1980, tumbling from being the 2^nd richest NUTS3 region to now being the 3^rdpoorest region in Ireland. 

 

- Ireland 2040 and the Southern Regional RSES signal a way forward for the region that involves rebalancing national priorities in a way that enables the South East to realise its potential. The national and regional plans both strongly endorse the transformation of the South East region through the further transformation of Waterford city, intensifying investment in innovation, technology, and learning to drive sustainable regional growth. 

 

- Adding higher education capacity to the region is a core tool in strengthening the regional economy. Right-sizing higher-education capacity would contribute €1bn to the regional economy, as it does in other regions. Having appropriate higher education capacity creates a pool of graduate talent, is a magnet for FDI and investors, generates the knowledge intensity that produces ideas, information and practices for entrepreneurship, all of which produces wealth and resilience. This in turn supports high quality social infrastructure—health care, education, services, vibrant communities and cultural life. In practice, to complete this transformation means scaling up current higher education provision to create a university of substance and critical mass in the region and involves doubling the number of degree-level undergraduate places through new courses, new buildings and quality initiatives, coupled with transformative growth of postgraduate and research activity. 

 

- The foundation for this university of substance exists in Waterford Institute of Technology. Where the new knowledge-led economy has emerged in the region, it has done so in association with Waterford Institute of Technology. WIT, working with a hinterland that acutely feels the need for university-type services has developed into degree, postgraduate and research and is the leading provider to leaving certificate students with 32% market share. Carlow, for comparison is the fourth largest provider in the region with an 8% share. WIT’s research and innovation performance is unmatched by any other Institute, making a €1bn impact over the past 20 years, ranking 2^nd amongst all Irish HEIs in attracting competitive European funding in ICT, hosting the only technology gateway in the sector with leading research capacity in advanced manufacturing and biopharma. Advancing higher education in the region needs to build on existing clear strengths and high performance and to focus on the regional city. A properly funded TU (which is not what’s on offer) is a unique opportunity for the NDP to deliver a step change, once in a century opportunity to actually give the South East the tools to tackle all those parameters and become nett contributors to Ireland Inc.

 

-   the last new teaching building delivered in WIT was designed in 1998 and finally delivered in 2005. Since 2008 some €996m was provided in capital funding to higher education in other regions.

 

The SE’s higher education platform needs to be put on an equivalent funding platform to other regions, to encompass capital programmes, borrowing capability and supports, state grant, research income and access to other voted expenditure programmes. Current total institutional income of the SE institutions of €125m, is €97m below a pro-rata share. The region is closed out of the borrowing framework facilitated between the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Universities (and also TUD through the Grangegorman Development Agency Act 2005) and is limited in its ability to compete for SFI funds. Progressively over the next five years (2021-2026), the Government needs to commit to bring the SE institutions into line with the funding that flows into comparable regions.

 

Much of the region’s difficulties emerge from the political challenge of developing urban services, with other cities contesting to deliver these to the region, and the significant towns and historical city in the region contesting within the region — this is evident in health, retail, the boundary extension debate and in cultural projects. 

 

I see no other way of delivering the economic and social transformation than building on the raw material of WIT. The entire TU process emerged in response to WIT’s university application in 2005, which itself was a manifestation of the pressure to add higher education capacity in the SE. A decade after the TU was offered as the pathway forward for the region there is no plan or ambition to add capacity in the region.

 

The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science stoodaside and watched this unproductive decade-long mess emerge, whilst equally supporting significant strategic advances elsewhere - in Grangegorman, RCSI, in the universities, in Limerick IoT and elsewhere; it does look as if the Department (and by extension, the Government) are erring on the side of suppressing the emergence of a university of substance in the region at the expense of our region’s economy.

 

At this moment it is as likely that the TU as currently constituted might in fact halt the region’s economic transformation, taking from the impact of the region’s IoTs as these institutions wrestle themselves together. We need a Waterford-led University/TU that addresses the acute need for a university of substance in the region. 

 

ISSUE (ii) REGIONAL INVESTMENT (SPECIFICALLY IN RELATION TO THE SOUTH EAST)

POPULATION OF WATERFORD CITY FOR THE PURPOSES OF INVESTMENT

Based on analysis the Waterford Metropolitan Area currently has a functional population of approximately 104,000. In fact a more expansionary and ambitious metropolitan area based on high-quality corridor access to Waterford CBD from Kilkenny, Wexford and Clonmel would indicate a metropolitan area population of approximately 225,000 within a 45-minute isochrone. 

A comparative study of all five MASP boundaries in Ireland demonstrates there is no consistency in their development. Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford appear to be based on CSO electoral district boundaries: Galway appears to be based more on CSO small areas analysis. Both Cork and Dublin have metro zones created during previous studies involving the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Given that the statutory Boundary Review Committee decision on Waterford City was set aside by political intervention, it is important a technical, evidence-based approach be taken that reports the actual scale of Waterford City to ensure regional service delivery.

Supressing the population of Waterford Metropolitan Area is used to further diminish service provision in the region in acute healthcare, retail, higher education, MNC marketing and support activity, entrepreneurship support and cultural/tourist investment - particularly across the Ireland 2040 investments.

Estimates indicate a spend of €800m in Limerick MASP, €1.1bn in Cork and around only €110m in Waterford. There is no clear articulation of the existence of these regional imbalances, or a consideration of if, and how, these regional imbalances might be addressed.

The artificial suppression of the Waterford City population relative to other Irish cities leads to consequent knock-on under investment in Waterford as the ‘smallest city’. A label which I vehemently contest. The current population of Waterford City does not represent the truth.   

• Limerick’s Metropolitan Area includes the Clare town of Shannon (10k people | 23.5km).

• Cork’s Metropolitan Area includes Carrigaline (15k people | 15.7km), Ballincollig (18k people | 8.9km) and  Middleton (12k people | 23.5k ).

• Waterford’s Metropolitan Area excludes Tramore (10k people | 12.6km), New Ross (9k people | 23km), Carrick on Suir (6k people | 27km), and smaller settlements of Mooncoin, Mulinavat, Kilmathomas, Dunmore East and Passage East that are suburban to Waterford. We estimate that approximately 45,000 people living in the Waterford hinterland are artificially excluded by only using 20-30% of the land area of the other metropolitan areas. 

At the very least Waterford can claim a population of 104,000 making it Irelands 3^rd city highlighting an even further gap in the investment the city has and continues to receive. 

 

ISSUE (iii) REGIONAL INVESTMENT (SPECIFICALLY IN RELATION TO THE SOUTH EAST)

REGIONAL ROADS N24 / RAIL / PORTS / AIRPORT

The exclusion of the N24 solution as proposed by the South East County Councils should be reconsidered. The decision to exclude Waterford/Wexford from the regional motorway ring (N24 solution) is crippling to regional cohesion and equality. It will create a Galway-Limerick-Cork Atlantic-corridor that strategically excludes the South East. This is the single biggest investment in regional infrastructure that should be included. 

Rail

Given the commitments to compact urban development and addressing climate goals, there needs to be more strategic thinking around the region’s rail infrastructure. In particular, rail freight is essential to delivering on our climate goals. With carbon pricing likely to emerge within the life of the plan a full-throated articulation of how rail fits into the region’s transport plans is desirable. 

Ports

The ports in the SE represent a significant infrastructural anchor of the region’s economy and an ambitious NDP would surely contain the aspiration to develop the ports from Core Ten-T ports to the more strategic Comprehensive designation (which is the status held by Limerick-Foynes, Cork and Dublin ports). We can observe significant investments being orchestrated and enabled in Dublin and Cork suggesting that over time the South Eastregion’s ports will decline in relative scale and importance. Those investments are stimulating demand for further linked infrastructure investments (such as the N28, and Dublin outer ring-road). Policies and strategies to support the usage and development of the South East Ports are critical in terms of carbon/climate, regionalisation, smart multi modal logistics, access to markets and development of the regional economy. The NDP is simply not ambitious or specific enough in offering a vision for the region’s ports, which is surprising given the significant capacity of the ports, the significant capacity in linked infrastructure and the relative congestion (and consequently higher pricing) of other ports.  

 

Airport

The NDP should take a positive, expansionary position on the development of Waterford-South East regional airport, which is currently preparing for a runway expansion, as critical regional infrastructure. The additional cost is insignificant in comparison to the Dublin Airport runway project and could permit Waterford Airport to be a counterbalance to the unconstrained growth of Dublin Airport. 

 

 

Are we really prepared to risk WIT for nothing more than a re-heated commitment from 2009?

At todays Waterford City & County Council Plenary meeting a motion that I had submitted in January was finally debated and passed unanimously. The motion read "That Waterford City & County Council calls on the government to clarify the funding and configuration arrangements for their proposed Technological University before dissolving Waterford Institute of Technology". However, despite the unanimous acceptance of the motion today I am not naive enough to think that all of my Council colleagues share my concerns which I outline below.

Before you point it out, yes, all of the elected TD's and Senators in the region - bar Matt Shanahan, to my knowledge - have accepted that Minister Harris has already done this and they are satisfied. And shouldn't that be enough for me. Well no, indeed it isn't. What Minister Harris has confirmed is €150m worth of capital investment for the new Technological University of the South East of Ireland (TUSEI) which, on the face of it sounds good, doesn't it. But when you drill down and it turns out that there is actually nothing new in it for Waterford then you have to start asking harder questions. Of the €150m there is €50m for a new campus in Wexford, €50m for developments in Carlow and €50m promised for Waterford for a new Engineering Building. The 'new' Engineering building that was committed to donkeys years ago, back in 2007 and pulled in 2011? (Along with a new School of Business - which has never re-emerged by the way.) Yes, that Engineering Building. So the price for us losing the number one (lest we forget it) Institute of Technology in Ireland and to tempt us into the embrace of the TU is a building that we were already promised and denied? Really? It says everything about what the government think we are worth, really. I'm not sure quite what it says about us that we are prepared to accept it.

With regard to the location of the Head Quarters of the TUSEI, is it not ironic in the extreme for Minister Harris to expect us to accept that he can't make any commitments on behalf of the future Governing Body [of the proposed TU] on the one hand, while on the other hand he commits them to a €50m campus spend in Wexford.

Essentially WIT and by extension, Waterford is getting nothing. Wexford is (allegedly) getting a new campus albeit as yet with no planning, no business plan and no faculties. And Carlow, which has been on the receiving end of the Departments largesse for the past 10 years gets another €50m for new buildings. Good for them.

Even if you were to accept this at face value, the distribution of the €150m, in one third tranches to each County is problematic. WIT is the number one provider of third level courses to students from the South East Region with Carlow in 4th position (behind UL and UCC). WIT also has a vastly more developed Research portfolio and double the staff. The Department and the Minister appear to be indicating that, despite this, it is to be treated as though it were no bigger than one third and had not achieved all that that it has. It points to how it will be treated in the future - as one third of the new TU. WIT needs to be recognised as at least 66% of the new Institution and the Waterford campus needs to be invested in to that extent. To do otherwise would be to diminish the achievements of the past 50 years and to downgrade the campus - and by extension, Waterford, the Regional Capital. The Regional Capital that the government, in their own policies - Ireland 2040, the National Planning Framework and the countless other policies that spring from them - indicate clearly needs to be properly and favourably resourced along with the other Regional Cities to provide a counter balance to Dublin and to act as an economic powerhouse for the South East Region.

The real question we need to ask ourselves is this: will the proposed Technological University give Waterford and the South East equality with the other Regional Cities? Will it provide a University of substance with the traditional suite of University courses - medicine, pharmacy, veterinary, teaching? Will it enable the South East to pull in 8.89% of Irelands investment in third level education (the equivalent of our share of the population)? I have heard nothing to indicate that it will. 

Trust us, say the TD's. Trust me says the Minister. Trust the process say the officials. Well we have seen what TD's and Ministers promises were worth when they forcefully dissolved our South East Hospitals Group, broke up the region and hived us off to Cork. The bottom line is that those promises weren't worth the breath that it took to utter them. Those promises have absolutely not been delivered to UHW and it would be irresponsible to accept similar promises regarding the TUSEI. So fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. 

Having said all that I acknowledge that, as with previous fights, I have no power to stop this. As someone once told me "the system always wins". The juggernaut that is the TU is gaining speed and the (laughably) independent facilitator/government enforcer - appointed without process - Tom Boland will strongarm his way to an application being submitted later this month, which will without question pass the international panel and be designated next year. 

I would just caution this: those politicians and their parties who sold us the Hospital Groups paid a high price. Those TD's and Senators who are selling us the Technological University would do well to take note. They own this now. If TUSEI does not deliver a University of substance, with absolute equality with other Universities, with no loss of relative status for Waterford, including student growth and the Head Quarters of the new Institution, I would suspect that the political careers of all those cheerleading this particular cause could face the same fate. 

Finally I would say this; if the news is so good, why is the Minister steadfastly refusing to come to Waterford and defend his progeny? Why has he spoken - several times in fact - to news outlets in Wexford and Carlow/Kilkenny but will not set foot in Waterford, nor speak to our media. The Council two months ago invited him to speak to us and we have had no indication that he will do so. That the Minister will not come here is ominous. While some choose to see only good intentions, I from long experience tend to see mostly danger. Come to Waterford Minister, tell us the good news, sell it to us. God knows we have fought for a University for so long, we would love to be able to jump on board and support its delivery. The Minister and the Department could allay our fears in the morning. That they absolutely refuse to do so is instructive. If we care to see it. There are none so blind as those that will not see. 

Our Institute of Technology is a prized asset here in Waterford. Are we really prepared to risk it for nothing more than a re-heated commitment from 2009? What if we wake up on January 1st next with WIT gone, Waterfords' status fatally damaged, no Head Quarters and no added investment? It will be too late then. 

The time for answers is now.