Mayor of Waterford, Councillor Mary Roche, today called on the people of Waterford to support Aer Arann, the passenger airline at Waterford Airport, as it goes through a period of Examinership. The Mayor stated her firm belief in the importance of the airline to business and tourism in Waterford and praised the services that Aer Arann continues to provide to and from the South East.

According to the Mayor, "the key routes to London, Manchester and Birmingham are critical to business investment in this region. In my recent round of discussions with large businesses based in Waterford, the importance placed upon direct access to key air routes is striking."

"Over 50% of traffic at the airport is now passengers visiting from the UK for business and leisure – in the context of our citys renewed focus on inward tourism, it is critical that we do all we can to support these services into the future. Our airport is a vital element of our infrastructure and we need to underline its importance to Government and seek to build upon the asset that we have."

"Recent studies have shown that Waterford Airport supports approximately 560 jobs in the South East, before considering the impact of air services on business location decisions."

"While I know that Waterford Airport has long had excellent custom from Kilkenny, Wexford, South Tipperary and Carlow, the new road infrastructure has greatly added to the airport usage in the region and to the convenience for inbound visitors to the Southeast."

"From my contacts with airport management, I am assured that it is business as usual at the airport and that all Aer Arann flights in and out of Waterford will continue through the Examinership. As Aer Arann uses the Examinership process to seek new investment, it is very encouraging to hear that the routes at Waterford Airport are among the best performing in their network and that Waterford is central to the future plans for the airline."

Reaction to the Hunt Report - No Second Class Solutions Acceptable!

The Mayor of Waterford Councillor Mary Roche has issued a statement commenting on the recent leaks from the National Strategy Group for Higher Education chaired by Dr Colin Hunt. The leaks claim that the group has rejected WIT’s case for University Status and will instead offer the entire sector the prospect of designation as ‘Technology Universities’ once stringent criteria have been met.

Councillor Roche states “The City of Waterford and the South East Region will speak once the Hunt Report is published. However, what we expect from the Hunt Report is nothing less than the ability of WIT – under whatever name or designation – to be able to deliver equality for this region. We will not accept anything that keeps us in the second tier and importantly would not deliver the same operating structure and autonomy as full University status.

We insist that WIT must have the remit to deliver inward investment into this region and the same capacity for research, development and innovation as every other region. The South East Region, more than any other needs that capacity to be unleashed.

“How many jobs,” asks Mayor Roche “have been lost to this City and this region as a result of the Governments’ prevarication on this issue? How many more will be lost if the Hunt Report doesn’t deliver? I want to send out a clear signal that we expect the Hunt Report to deliver nothing less than equality in terms of autonomy and finance for WIT – after that they can call the Institution whatever they like. The name is not important it is equality of opportunity for the region, for the city and for future generations that we demand.

Essentially if we are driving with the same engine it doesn’t matter that the bodywork might have a new coat of paint. I would urge the Government to take careful note of this message and not to attempt to deliver anything less for Waterford and the South East, ” she said.

North Quays

I think it's probably fair to say that we have faint hope that the North Quays will be developed any time soon under the current economic circumstances. They will, of course be tidied up and made safe for the visit of the International Tall Ships Fleet next June.

But what of the immediate or even medium term? I believe that there must be a useful purpose that the North Quays could be put to in order to restore them from dereliction and bring them into use for the people of Waterford and South Kilkenny.

My suggestions would be simple enough and simply achieved if people had half a mind to. They include either a simple park layout or a series of sports courts & pitches or even the dreaded parking.

Personally I favour the sports courts, followed by the park. One way or another this would tidy the area up until some other use is found for them. It will be an awful shame if they are allowed to fall once again into disrepair (see above and that photo was taken a year ago - I don't know what they are like right now but I'll bet it's not better)!

If all parties were willing the North Quays can and should be brought into use. There may even be a job or two in it.

Thanks Lads!

Yes it was a disappointing day for the Deise. The lads didn't play the way we know they can and in fairness Tipp were the better team. I wish them luck now as they meet the giants of Kilkenny - they're going to need it!

But it has to be said; it was another great year for Waterford. Munster Champions! Another All-Ireland semi-final!! We keep a-knocking and sooner or later we're gonna get in!!!

I have no doubt but that the Deise will have our day. We're up there competing with the best teams year after year now. And every year we learn a little more and get a little more experienced and sometime - soon I hope - all the work and sweat and (probably) tears is going to pay off and that monkey is going to be off our backs for good.

We've waited a hell of a long time and we can sure as hell wait some more. At least now we are competing. Every year we have rightful expectation and hope. Every year we get to Semple Stadium and Croke Park. How many generations of Waterford people never saw that? Haw many counties can never even hope to see that?

Well done to Davy Fitzgerald and his backroom team. Well done to the mighty Waterford warriors. Sure it would be easy to be gracious in winning but what Waterford are doing is building, building.... and building character. And it's working. You can't deny we've made enormous strides!

You get nothing for sympathy or because you 'deserve it'- in sport or in life. You have to go out and fight. And I know that the Waterford team will tend their wounds and their dented spirits and then next year they'll don the white-and-the-blue and they'll go out there again with pride and that justifiable expectation in their hearts. And so will we.

Thanks for the great year lads! Thanks for the hard work. Thanks for the time and the loyalty and the effort and the pain. Someday it's gonna come right for us and until then we just have to keep believing. And we do.

We live to fight another year......Roll on 2011!

Could 2010 Be The Start of Waterfords' Decade?

Okay so. Lets get the nasty truths out of the way.

Our International reputation as a Country is shot (evidence the increased cost of borrowing for Ireland Inc.) Ivor (I will one day be President) Callely is making extremely heavy weather of this whole expenses saga. Ministers are traipsing around the country in heavy duty jets while their Ministerial Mercs are tagging after them on the road network.

The Anglo Irish Banks bill is heading for just under €25,000,000,000! Yes that's 25 BILLION if you've lost count of the numbers. The HSE are closing beds and wards and hospitals wherever they can. The cost of doing business just went up this weekend with the energy levy. The Cystic Fibrosis patients are still dying without their isolation rooms. The elderly and cared for are having their support hours cut. Special schools are having their budgets cut.

Irish Rail are doing their best to close down the Rosslare Waterford railway line. We STILL have no decision on a University for Waterford. And all of this is just taking in the last month or so for news! The list goes on.

The Country, it seems, is up the creek!

So what can we do in our little corner of it?

What can we do for ourselves? What decisions are within our power to change, influence or implement? Those are the decisions that we should concentrate on.

The City Council has led the way using tourism as a driver with the delivery of the House of Waterford Crystal, the improvements on The Mall (pictured above from an unusual angle), the development of the Tourism product (festivals & marketing etc.) and the new www.discoverwaterfordcity.ie website (a real gem).

We are continuing that focus and adding in an Enterprise focus to hunt down jobs for our city and to promote an enterprise culture. We need people to create jobs both for themselves and if possible, for others.

We continue to try and bring improvements to the public realm and either encourage or force others to do so also. However the powers available to do this are limited and will not in truth deliver the kind of radical solutions that some people (including me) might like.

By the end of the year Waterford will be the only City (possibly the only place in Ireland) to be able to say that we are 'flood proof'. By September we will have a Motorway all the way to the Capital with the tourists and market that it opens up to us.

Bad and all as things are nationally and even Internationally I believe that 2010 could see the dawn of a prosperous and visionary decade for our City. If we all put our shoulders to the wheel and get our brains in gear - then I know it will be. It is up to us to capitalise on these many developments because no one is going to do it for us.

So ask yourself this: What can I bring to the party? And then bring it!

Reassurances from FG locally on University

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.

What Is Enda On About - Massive About Turn on WIT

What the hell is Enda up to? Up to the weekend before last he and his party were committed to the designation of WIT as a University. Then I hear on radio during the week how he will, when in government trigger an examination of that question (or some such other jibberish but you get the gerneral jist of it)!

Now that's what happens when a party leader in weakened. He is now prey to the whims and parochial preferences of those who 'saw him over the line' in the recent leadership heave. And no one did that moreso than the man known as 'big Phil'. Deputy Phil Hogan of our neighbouring parish of Kilkenny who is well known to be anti anything Waterford. And who was Endas right hand man in the battle which saw him save his leadership - and to whom he is now obviously beholden???? Cue bactracking on giving Waterford City University status. If its not enough to make your blood boil and detest politics then I don't know what is.

So is this what we have to look forward to if and when Fine Gael come into power? Enda, giving in to every local yokel who supported him on the promise of either promotion or preferential treatment? Government by gombeen men!

The change in Endas position on University status for Waterford would indicate that it is indeed so.

In that case, the sooner the majority of his Dail colleagues who already voted against him and who see him as weak dispose of him altogether, the better. We need a strong, principled leader with vision and not one who is compromised by 'owing' everybody!

At least John Deasy, to be fair to him, is being honest about whats going on and not blathering the obvious lie that all is now happy clappy in FG-land!

Well, the fight goes on. We are not accepting anything other than a University for Waterford and for this region. The most annoying thing about the whole debacle is that some people are prepared to deny what's right - even though it hurts the very people they purport to represent! All of our futures are highly dependent on this issue - whether we like it or not and WIT is the only show in town!

Well Done Munster Heroes!

Okay I admit it. I'm usually an armchair watcher of sport. So it was with some trepidation that I took to the highways and headed for Thurles for what turned out to be two great sporting occasions 'in the flesh' as it were over the last two weekends. The GAA are kind enough to give the Mayor of the City two tickets for the Munster Final (both of them) and I must say, having 'followed' the team for years via television or radio I'm a convert to the live game! Nothing compares to the atmosphere of a heaving, heart-pounding, high-speed hurling game played out by a team you care so much about!

True, you miss a lot of the detail: I didn't know who scored the winning goal until I heard it on WLR on the way home (good man Dan, you showed them all - what a hero!) and I will admit to missing the replays and the close-ups! I'm not well up enough to know the lads by their numbers but luckily enough I had Michael Walsh (City Manager) on one side of me and suffice to say he's well up on them all, numbers or not! Although with all the squirming around in his seat he was doing I didn't want to interrupt him too often. Obviously the man was feeling every puck and if will power alone was enough to put them over or under the bar, then he would have topped the scoring list himself!

It was hard to resist joining in with the chants, so I didn't (resist that is)! It was hard not to let a few shouts of 'Up the Deise' out of you when you felt there as a lull and the lads could do with knowing we were there for them, so I did. I whistled, boo-ed, ate my nails, shouted at the referee, willed the shots over the bar, jeered the Cork lads behind us at half time for making such a racket and had an all round excellent time indeed.

The GAA, I must say, had it all extremely well organised. Plenty stewards on hand, good programme, just back far enough in the stand to miss the rain and of course, the cuppa and sarnies at half time across in the Dome. I had an uncle with me who travels quite a bit to games and he was mightily impressed with the treatment received in the guest enclosure.

Of course, it helped enormously that Waterford won! Waterford people in the run up to both games were quietly confident although almost all 'neutrals' seemed to think that all Cork had to do was turn up! Of course, that scenario always suits Waterford down to the ground for some reason.

Our seats were quite close to the magnificent Munster cup so over I went to take a photo. I assured those in the really posh seats directly behind it that we would be bringing it home to Waterford later that evening and they seemed pleasant - if somewhat dubious of my claim. Oh how I love it when a plan comes together!

When Stephen Malumphy, Eoin Kelly with his baby son, John Mullane, Tony Browne and all the lads filed up past me to collect it, well it was just magic. Looking out over the pitch which had been invaded by the white and blue of the Deise was just magic too. And while next year I won't be in the posh seats, with their half-time cuppas and I might have to brave the rain in my face, I think the whole experience is worth it.

It lifts your spirits to see those men battle so hard in the name of Waterford; to see the determination and character it takes to never give up; to take the knocks, the pushing and shoving, the sheer physicality of this most magnificent of games and to keep going. To keep putting the sliothar up the field, keep aiming over the bar and hoping your chance to put one under will come. To never give an inch to the other team no matter how they might try to force you by skill or by skin and bone. To hear the infamous 'clash of the ash'.

It was a pretty intense evening and may I say a heartiest congratulations to all of those who put themselves on the line; who put their personal lives to the side and who stand out there and fight the fight for us. To all the backroom team and the Manager Davy Fitzgerald who has worked so hard for us.

But the fight is only half done. There are other, bigger battles to fight and scores to settle. So like as we would to light the bonfires and salute our Munster Champions we defer it to another day - a day perhaps later this year in early September when the men of the Deise could possibly, maybe, who knows....bring home the big one? The one they deserve. This is a great team, with great heart and courage and fire so for now we'll just wish them well. We'll keep our powder dry and who knows....if they are determined enough, if they are strong enough and if they are fierce enough then dues will be paid, pride will be restored to those who have suffered and a too long gap will have been bridged.

Who knows the future. But one thing is for sure; the glory is theirs to take and God knows, they've earned it.

We wait with bated breath!

Speech Made at Mayoral Election Tonight

Fellow councillors, Members of the Oireachtas, City Manager, former Mayors, distinguished guests, Directors and staff, family and friends:

I wish to begin by thanking my proposer, Cllr. Cha O’Neill, my seconder, Cllr Davy Daniels and all the members for their support here this evening.

I’d like to begin by dedicating my election tonight to the memories of my grandparents William & Bridget Roche and William and Margaret Walshe all of whom I knew and loved well. While my family has no political tradition, it has a long tradition of service. Service to family and neighbours and to the wider community. My grandparents were decent, hard-working, ordinary people in a time when they knew what it was to have to struggle to make ends meet and to earn your living with your own sweat. I’d also hate to let the evening pass without mentioning my late in-laws Michael & Irene Keating who would most certainly have loved to be here this evening. Finally thanks to everyone for coming here and especially those who have travelled from as far as the Canary Islands! Your support is never taken for granted and is much appreciated.

This evening is the start of a year long voyage for me but I can’t begin without mentioning the formidable year that my predecessor John Halligan has just put in. Indeed he has set the bar so high that I will be able to limbo dance under it with no difficulty at all and as for trying to raise it even more, well I wouldn’t even try. Congratulations John. You were a credit to yourself and your family but most of all you were a credit to the historic office of Mayor of Waterford City.

The best I can hope for and what I intend to do is to put my whole heart and soul and effort into this job for the next 12 months and hope that I can, through that hard work, inspire and bring hope to our citizens. Hope that the sparkle of a new beginning that has been the opening of the House of Waterford Crystal across the Mall will signal the beginning of bright days for our city and for the people who share it.

While I want to strike a positive note tonight I do want to mention the plight of the workers who, when the old factory closed, lost their jobs and especially those who have lost their pensions. At a very late stage in their lives those men and women have found themselves cast adrift and I sincerely hope that they will be successful in their fight and will get the pensions that they have paid into with their own money – no more and no less and surely that is not too much to ask.

Waterford is a fantastic city, a beautiful city and I want all of our citizens to be proud of and feel part of the new energy and buzz that we are trying to create here. I want Waterford people both living here and abroad to become ambassadors for our city. I want them to visit and experience our attractions. I want them to make sure that they talk to their friends from outside about us.

I want people to sell Waterford and to make sure that when visitors do come here, they go away knowing that that Waterford is the oldest city in Ireland, that the Irish flag was introduced to this country by a Waterford man Thomas Francis Meagher and that it was flown for the first time in 1848 from 33 The Mall – directly across from here, just as is it once again flying tonight. Even that it’s thanks to Waterford that the world now enjoys the cream cracker and the rasher and of course, not forgetting the infamous blaa!!

I want them to know that Waterford has museums, galleries, theatres, parks, shops and restaurants to rival any other place and that our people, Waterford people, are the friendliest, warmest and decentest people in Ireland – as I surely know that we are.

There is much I would love to achieve during this year; University status for Waterford – very dear to my heart and something we have fought and will continue to fight for. We must leave the powers that be in no doubt that we will only accept a ‘yes’ answer on this issue. The spine of the education system in Ireland, from primary to University is based on a document written by Waterford MP, Thomas Wyse in the early 19th Century. This city has contributed so much nationally, particularly in the area of education, that is past time when we should be recognized with University status.

We will no longer stand for anything but the best. The M9 is almost complete, the new bridge is built, the Airport and Aer Arann are keeping us connected by air, and the port is continuing to grow, our Quays are about to change the very face of the City.

We have a story to tell and a city to sell! I intend to engage with the business and industrial community to see where there are synergies that they in partnership with us in City Hall, can deliver more for the benefit of our city. Waterford is open for business and I am exploring the possibility of leading our own trade delegation in search of jobs. We should not be prepared to sit back anymore and wait for other people to do this work for us. They have not been delivering.

We need to take that bit between our teeth, pack our courage in our suitcases and get out and sell ourselves to the world.

To those businesses who have survived these tough economic years – we salute your acumen and tenacity and the jobs that you have maintained and created. I would ask every business locally to look to the future and to consider whether they could possibly employ - even one more - staff.

I would also like to encourage and congratulate those who have set up their own businesses and taken the leap into self-employment.

Together we can and will fight our way back to prosperity and opportunity for more and more people. To our communities and volunteers and the wonderful work that is done helping people on the ground I say, well done. Your work makes a great difference to us and our city.

I also have plans to invite our schools to twin with schools in South Africa and I’m working on another linkage in that area which I hope will come to fruition during this year.

Traditionally, the Mayor has hosted a Mayors Ball in the Spring and I intend to continue this tradition. The charities that I have chosen are the Saint Vincent de Paul and the Solas Centre – both for obvious and very deserving reasons.

However I also intend to add in a third beneficiary and that will be a new fund which I intend to set up in memory of the late Nicky Fewer, Freeman of Waterford. The Nicky Fewer Memorial Sailing Scholarship will be used as a bursary to enable young Waterford people to go sail-training. Sail-training is a wonderful way for young people to begin to experience the world and make new friends as well as to start to know their own worth. It builds character and they will hopefully discover that the only limits are those we put on ourselves.

I have spoken with Nickys’ wife Maria and I am delighted to say that she has allowed me to proceed with this project in Nickys’ name and memory. And I would like to welcome Maria and Nickys sister Anne and her husband Michael, who have travelled to be here this evening.

Nicky was a proud Waterford man and one whom we should not forget for his vision, for his hard-work, for his never say die attitude and for his sheer determination to go out and make his ideas come to life.

We should not forget that it was Nicky who brought together the group of Waterford stakeholders who initiated the idea that Waterford Crystal must not be allowed to leave our city. He passed that mission onto the City Manager, Michael Walsh, who so ably led - indeed drove - its delivery. We need men and women like Nicky Fewer today more than ever. I hope that the Scholarship will go on in perpetuity and that Nickys’ name will be honoured and remembered through it.

I also hope to use my year as Mayor to encourage the Government to re-instate our National Sail Training Programme. The fact that the sail training programme sank when the STV Asgard II was sadly lost, almost 3 years ago now is a national disgrace, especially considering that it was funded by the National Lottery and not from central funds. Perhaps we here in Waterford, given our strong maritime heritage, can lead a campaign to have the sail-training programme re-instated. It is nothing short of disgraceful that, ahead of two visits by the Tall Ships fleet to our shores over the next two summers, we as a nation do not have a Tall Ship to replace the Asgard II, to fly the Irish flag and to continue in the role of Ambassador for Ireland which she carried out so magnificently during her 27 years of service.

I also believe very strongly that sport and the arts and culture are a very important part of our heritage here in Waterford.

I would like in particular to mention our mighty hurlers who continue to steadfastly chase and achieve glory in our name. I wish them God speed – and of course that elusive ‘bounce of the ball’ as they contest the Munster Final.

I am delighted that my friends in Red Kettle and Jim Nolan have come here tonight. The work that Red Kettle, Spraoi, the beautifully restored Theatre Royal, Waterford Youth Arts, Garter Lane, our writers, poets, painters, musicians and many others do, does so much to enrich our lives and I would like to take this opportunity to encourage people to become involved.

To do, to go, to see, and to enjoy the many performances and exhibitions that happen in this city each and every week. I would also like to congratulate Red Kettle and Waterford Youth Arts both of whom celebrate their 25th year of delivering joy and challenges in equal measure this year. We’ve all come a long way from Janey Mac!

I am particularly delighted that during this year we will see the Waterford International Festival of Light Opera return for its 50th Anniversary, incorporated as it is now into the Waterford Festival of Music. I have been energized and impressed by what I have heard of the plans so far and wish the organizers every success with this venture. May it be the beginning of another 50 years of success for the festival as well as celebrating those 50 years already gone.

Waterfords’ light entertainment heritage and talent should not be forgotten either and I have a number of plans for the year including an attempt to try and re-instate our own much beloved and once extremely popular and successful Tops of the Town. More anon!

There is so much that I want to do, but tonight is not a night for lists. Please God – and with the help of WLR fm and the Munster Express, Waterford Today & the News and Star – there’ll be plenty of time for that during the next 12 months.

I am anxious to build on and capitalize upon that new hope and confidence that has been peeping through over the past week here in the city. I find it impossible now not to walk along the Mall without an enormous sense of pride. I want all Waterford people to feel that pride – justifiably – in their city, in our city, in our home. I want the world to see and feel Waterford re-emerging with a new confidence.

As we build up to the magical Tall Ships Festival which will once again grace our noble quays next summer, I invite all of you and all of Waterford to come aboard; to fill the decks; to clamber onto the yards; to cling to the anchor if you have to because the good ship Waterford is taking sail – she’s been berthed in the shallows for too long and now with the wind beginning to fill her sails she’s heading towards brighter shores.

I invite you all to join with me on that journey.

Thank you.

Does the Boundary Issue Need to be Re-visited?

Waterford is indeed a historic city, with continuous settlement here since 914. We will have an historic anniversary to celebrate come 1014.

The work on The Mall and soon to be redesigned historic mile-long Quays are changing the way we view Waterford ourselves and the way Waterford is viewed from outside. At last, I believe the city is standing up, dusting itself off and beginning to look to the future with hope an confidence. The magnificent Tall ships will once again grace our city come next summer and with that and the activity surrounding the soon to be officially opened House of Waterford Crystal, things are beginning to feel right in Waterford.

But that is not the full story. Our neighbouring local authorities have demonstrated by their actions in the last few years that not only do they covet our prosperity, but that indeed they are prepared to put in place strategies which look to actively damage our historic city and along with it, our potential to deliver not just for for the narrow audience of our own citizens but also our ability to be a driver or the entire region.

This is demonstrated through, for example the huge Shopping Centre - one of the Celtic Tigers' worst examples of bad planning - now lying idle (as they were warned it would be) just outside the northern boundary of the city and also by the TK Maxx debacle, which was eating up jobs from our city centre on our western boarder.

Now it is my estimation that we have enough to be doing in looking after our own affairs that to be trying to fight rearguard actions on our flanks watching what those who refuse to implement proper planning are up to next. This is why I believe that if John Gormley is to make any meaningful changes in local authority systems, rather than just tinkering around and simply putting in place new unrealistic authority boundaries instead of old ones, any change that doesn't take a much closer look will be both a waste of time and a wasted opportunity.

Waterford City should be the administrative authority at the very least for the PLUTS area of South Kilkenny (leave them keep their addresses and GAA loyalties) and also for a large chunk of County Waterford out to and including the dormitory towns of Tramore, Portlaw, etc.

This would, I contend, lead to far better and more cohesive planning and balanced development in the entire area. I have long argued that East Waterford (County) has more affinity with, and in common with, the City than it ever has with those areas in the mid and west of the County.

What about regional authorities? Too many people on them continue to operate with a parochial mindset for them to ever be effective or indeed to place the good of the region over the good of their own small area.

So does the boundary issue need to be re-visited? Yes I would say. Will the boundary issue be re-visited? Well, that's the six-million-dollar question, isn't it?