We’ve had “Bertie’s Bowl” and now “Varadkar’s Valhalla!”

I arrived in Ireland, some sixteen years ago, having driven a lorry containing ALL our family’s worldly belongings from Larne to Waterford City. It was a mammoth, long, weary journey at the time. There was little or no motorway infrastructure and in truth there were crappy roads everywhere, from the North to the South.

Our very small Scottish convoy, which constituted a rented 7.5 tonne truck and my Escort estate car, was stopped just across the border. This, I recall, put the fear of god into me and here’s why. In the back of my car, my air rifle was hidden inside my golf bag! I was well aware that an air rifle was illegal in Ireland, so to hide mine, I somehow thought making it look like a golf club was a good idea. Luckily the Garda only asked where we were going and once I explained that I was moving from Scotland to Waterford, he waved us on. The air rifle quickly left the Garland household once we settled in the City.

Thankfully, we have now seen major changes to the road infrastructure. The difficulties in accessing the South East corner, which took me from memory around 9 hours to get to in 2001, have been resolved. Belfast can be reached in less than 4 hours. Better still, you can actually drive from Belfast to Waterford without being stopped at a traffic light. Whilst the speed of change has been more walking pace than meteoric, there has been progress in opening up this wee sunny corner of this green isle.

When I settled in Waterford there was great talk and discussion about Waterford being THE “Gateway City” for the South East region. It would be developed to become the economic powerhouse of the region. Securing and attracting inward foreign investment, which would bring huge numbers of well paid jobs to everyone living in the “Sunny South East”. We would have a regional hospital with all the bells and whistles. A regional airport servicing the UK and the Western fringes of Europe. A university to rival those of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway.

Scroll forward sixteen years and Government after Government have abjectly failed to deliver any regional development. Both the South East and North West have been principally ignored, by the very bodies that should be concentrating on promoting these disadvantaged areas. But the Irish way seems to be to ignore these problem children, sitting so far away from the epicentre of power.

The IDA’s own figures reveal a damming indictment on just how far Waterford has fallen off the table, in terms of “Promotional visits”. We are told that Waterford and the South East cannot be pushed ahead of the other regions. In fact our region cannot be promoted or receive special attention – as that would just be unfair! So, with the other regions flourishing, they're becoming an irresistible draw for yet more and  more Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), at a significant cost to the struggling NW and SE.

Our current Government recently launched the National Planning Framework, amid much pomp, ceremony and PR spin. A highlight for Waterford was Minister Coveney’s promise to double the City’s population. Yet, almost the very next day he rejected a report’s recommendations to extend the City’s boundary North across the River Suir. Talk about flip flopping, this party has it down to a T.

So, the very latest Government idea, to help a “Struggling Dublin?” with its booming economy once again, is to consider building a new City for Ireland in the Midlands region!!!!

Just where is the sense in such a stupid, ridiculous idea?

Our two struggling regions are crying out for Government investment. They are ready for regional investment and yet may once again be overlooked.

Are we really prepared to accept one more political folly after another? Who remembers Bertie’s Bowl? Now, after only a few wet weeks in office, we are planning to build Varadkar’s Valhalla. Why do our leaders feel the need to build their own Guggenheims? To be immortalised when they depart the political arena?

Surely, delivering an equitable, fair and reasonable regional development policy is a better legacy than one more Guggenheim?

Forget the first 100 days, Leo’s first 100 hours were mighty!

Donald “The” Trump, as president of the “Good Old US of A”, was assessed on his progress, as the newest resident of the White House, after only 100 days. Our latest and youngest ever Taoiseach, Leo “The Lion” Varadkar, has already courted so much controversy that we need only look to his first “100 hours” in office to read his mindset.

When you dig deeper into his cabinet appointments, you can see that there is really very little to shout about, for Ireland’s Oldest City and the wider region.

As with ALL cabinet reshuffles, there will be the inevitable winners and losers, prior to all the dust settling and before the unavoidable fallout starts. The best you can hope for, is that your own TDs get a gig on the back of putting at least one of their big feet into the right camp. For Waterford that foot surprisingly, belonged to our very own “Scarlet Pimpernel”, from the “Westh” of the county, John Deasy. There can be no doubt that having put his head above the parapet to support Leo, he could have expected a small token Junior Minster post, in one of the more obscure Government Departments.

 

“Surprise, Surprise!”, as Cilla Black would have said, Waterford was given no such recognition. In fact the whole of the South East was left remarkably short of any representation at Leo’s round table of cabinet lovies. As he was ignoring the “Sunny South East”, he also disregarded many a talented female TD and loaded his Ministerial roles with men from Mars.

Across the border in County Kilkenny, there was significant recognition for John Paul Phelan and a post to the very Department that looks after our local government. This was after all the very man who was so vociferous on the boundary issue, that I and many others suspected he was the very reason that Simon Coveney choose not to implement the report’s recommendations. Did John Paul have one foot in each camp during the Fine Gael leadership election campaign? He may very well have done and do you know what, it was such a pity that our own could not manoeuvre the chess pieces around the board to do the same? He supported Coveney and yet wooed Varadkar. The result was a role as a serious influencer for his constituency and lots of positive PR for himself.

Unfortunately, both the political heavyweight parties see our nearest neighbours as either 2 or 3 seat constituencies. Waterford on the other hand looks like it may well return 1,1,1,1, for the foreseeable future. Unless, I hate to say this, we somehow return 3 FF or 3 FG we will continue to see political tumbleweed blowing us through Dáil Éireann. Waterford, as a political force, has been out flanked by our surrounding counties and the net result will be the odd minuscule crumb, thrown to us every now and again.

The sad truth is that we cannot even get this Government to deliver a poultry circa €2 million project for increased Catherisation Laboratory facilities. This is chicken feed spending to an Irish Government! All around the country other TDs are delivering quietly and efficiently, services their constituent voters want and demand. All done outside of the glare of national press scrutiny and publicity. We here in Waterford, are being stitched up like the proverbial kipper!

I fear that unless the UHW situation is fixed with a long term plan, we could very well see a stand alone candidate being elected for Waterford in the next general election. The sad truth is “What good will this do us?” As he/she will be one lone voice, outside of the sphere of Government influence, wandering aimlessly around the corridors of Leinster House.

Our other crumb of comfort is that Leo’s mother hails from County Waterford. This of course means that he will see his home county as somewhere that needs special attention, ahead of all other constituencies! A Junior Minister post for a sitting FG Dungarvan TD perhaps? Oh bugger, I forgot that dice has already been cast!

So we in Waterford are once again waking up, scratching our heads, thinking “Groundhog Day?”

“Golden Circles” and "BIG Tubes" everywhere!

Was it any real surprise the UK voters gave Theresa May’s Tory Government a bloody nose and, if truth be told, a damn good kicking last week in the UK’s surprise general election? An election that was supposed to increase the Tory majority to such a size that May could, quite literally, steamroll her policies through the Westminster Parliament with gay abandon. 

May’s so called “Dementia Tax”, ensured that thousands of traditional bedrock Tory voters would jump ship, for fear of losing their homes, farms or property. This, along with many other “Stupid” manifesto promises, well and truly put several nails in her coffin.

In the meantime, that wily old fox that is Jeremy Corbyn, promised young and old voters, the earth, moon and the stars. In terms of what he would deliver, for FREE, if he and his Labour party were given the mandate to govern the UK. Let us not forget that it is always easier in opposition at election time, to guarantee voting nirvana, when you don’t actually have to make the books of Government balance. The same, back of a fag packet economics, goes on at the moment with FF, SF and the so called Independent Alliance. Their economic policies as individual stand alone plans, probably do stand up to individual scrutiny. But, as a combined fiscal strategy, these are as watertight as a sieve.

It is also worth pointing out, that there was a huge amount of arrogance within the May campaign. That could clearly be seen on her battle bus’s shrink wrapped blue colour scheme and campaign slogan, “Theresa May for Britain” – no mention of the Tory party! There was very little acknowledgement of the actual Conservative Party, but lots of references to what Theresa May would do for the voter.

In the end May lost the trust of the voters and Corbyn gained the trust, albeit temporarily, of many others. Nobody really expected Labour to win, but many were prepared to give May a handicap to impede her run towards another “Solid” term in office. Her majority Government is no more and a rather uncomfortable alliance is now being sought, with that “Most stable” of parties the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)! I just wonder if Arlene Foster will ask for too much and that the Tories will be back to the people in a few months time?

It would seem now, that both UK and our own Irish politicians are much more remote from us, their paymasters. I put this down to the “Golden Circles” that they inevitably surround themselves with. After all, if your Cabinet, committees and work teams are all made up of “Lovies” and people who are prepared to “Lick arse”, then you are going to always get a consensus of opinion. There will be absolutely no buffer against someone standing up and saying “A hum, excuse me, but maybe, just maybe this is not what our voters want?”

To put it another way and to use a cycling analogy. Supposing you are unfortunate enough to get a puncture on your bike, whilst out on our Greenway and replace the inner tube with the wrong sized tube, i.e. you put on a bigger tube, then you are in real trouble. Whilst all may look well on the outside, whilst you cycle the bike, the ride will be extremely unstable and well, downright dangerous. The fact is that Governments are, in far too many instances, putting on “Big tubes”, instead of finding the right and correct size in the first place. They are guaranteeing themselves a bumpy ride by being downright lazy in not doing the right thing in the first place.

“Golden Circles” are here to stay. I fear that they are now becoming accepted, as part of our everyday lives in terms of politics. You can be sure that during the FG leadership election campaign, groups of the chosen few, from each camp, would have been sitting in darkened rooms paying tribute to their own efforts to get their man elected.

Unfortunately, we in Waterford don’t even have access to the “Bronze Circle”. For the foreseeable future, we will be outside of that circle, unless we find a real political heavyweight. 

What if Simon says “No!”

We have already seen the appalling decision made by a certain Simon H to conveniently disregard the highly respected Higgins report on University Hospital Waterford (UHW), in favour of his own Government’s Herity Report. A Report, which we were told, if the readers can recall, was merely a formality. It was a very simple matter of ticking a few boxes, crossing some “T’s” and dotting a number of “I’s”. This would confirm what we already knew. That a second Catheterisation Laboratory for UHW should in fact be delivered, funded and built, ASAP.

But, we now know that we were sold a pup.

The second lab would not be forthcoming and to appease those Deise hordes, it was announced in Dublin, that a mobile unit would be diverted down the M9, to UHW and used to take up the “Slack”. Unfortunately, this mobile unit cannot, at the moment, seem to find its way to Waterford. To add insult to injury, this unit would be “Shared” with other just as needy regions. A big kick in the teeth to us on this matter, from Simon H!

But there would be light at the end of our dark tunnel.

We could, in the short term, forget not securing a second Catheterisation Laboratory, as good news was in fact, just around the corner. Waterford in recent weeks, has bounced back, in a big way. Wonderful, joyous and fantastic news that a €300,000,000 development of the City’s North Quays, would categorically take place, with investment of many, many Middle Eastern Riyal. In fact we would get TWO retail centres built for the price of one – happy days are ahead.

This news, in conjunction with the 2040 National Planning Framework, announced by Minister Simon C, would see accelerated development of our Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), to help double the City’s population. At last we could collectively take a breath and it now looked like Government was listening to the people of Waterford. They were actually going to put their hand in their collective pockets, to find some much needed fiscal money, to feed our economy.

Just like London buses, a third piece of good news landed on our doorstep. That hotel on the hill had finally been sold. The promise of a five star development, garden rooftop bars, largest function suite in Waterford, conference space....the list was endless.

Were we finally beginning to turn the corner? Waterford was surely on the up, or are we?

Amid much whooping and hollering we have to remember that to develop our North Quay’s SDZ we need Government money. Some say €50 million, but in Ireland that probably means that what is needed could well be in excess of €60 million, possibly €70 million. This loosening of the exchequer purse strings will not be easy. It will not be without its challenges and rest assured the political “Flat cap” clout from other regions will be doing their very, very best to divert this money elsewhere.

The bottom line is, that unless this money for the earmarked infrastructural work in our SDZ is not signed, sealed and delivered by Government. Where is this money to come from?

Waterford Council certainly do not have the funds, or the means to allocate anywhere near this level of funding. I suspect that our nearest neighbours in Kilkenny and Wexford will not be too much help either? So we are once again relying on a Government whose track record in supporting Waterford INC is to say the very least sketchy.

We have recently had one Simon saying “Yes” and one Simon saying “No”. A bit like that game we used to play as kids. An outcome completely randomly based on chance. 

Does Simon C really want Waterford City to stand any chance of doubling its population, for the betterment of the whole of the South East? Will he really get Old Father Time (Noonan), to open his dusty wallet and find €50/ €60/€70 million for this City?

The very recent delivery record for Waterford has been extremely poor. The onus is on our Junior Minister, 3 TDs and 2 Senators to now earn their stripes.