Shhhh – have we all gone too quiet!!

I am quite sure that the powers that be, in their Dublin bastion, know that all political momentum has a lifespan!

Sooner or later the drive, enthusiasm and determination, initiated maybe by an awkward political question, will dissipate and in no time at all we will have moved on to another issue. This is undoubtedly what seems to be happening with our Waterford problems.

We have yet to secure our place, metaphorically speaking, as the awkward elephant in the corner of each and every parliamentary meeting room.

Our sheer revulsion at the shenanigans, currently going on in the Department of Health and the HSE, around the life and death issues in University Hospital Waterford, seem to be falling on too many deaf ears.

On this subject there is absolutely no doubt, that in the halls of power, we have no voice. The issue of a 90 minute drive to a safe operating table, is clearly being lost. All subject matters cardiac, for the South East, are seen purely as Waterford’s problems. There has been no expansion of the issue, to include the wider region.

I can guarantee that there have been very few column inches, if any, in the likes of Tipperary, Wexford, Gorey, Kilkenny... and so on. Dublin know this, from their TDs on the ground and as they feel no pressure, from their own electorate, they are doing very little to come up with the right solution. The whole matter around UHW needs to become THE political hot potato for the South East region. TDs across Waterford, Wexford, Tipperary etc need to fear for their cosy political armchairs in Dublin. They need to be aware that the very people who put them in the Dáil, want cardiac cover that will save their lives, if called upon.

 

There will be many who do not wish to see this issue become politicised. Well it has gone down that route and now, a truly regional voice needs to sing as one. Each and every TD across the region needs to act our behalf.

The stark reality is, that if you suffer a heart attack and have to be transported by an ambulance to Cork or Dublin, you have a 90 minute window or you die!

Maybe this is the message we need to get out to the people of Wexford, Tipperary, Kilkenny...and so on. A few years ago, when there was the very real threat of Rescue 117 being moved from Waterford, people power across the whole South East region secured the service at Waterford Airport. The message was simple – be rescued by the 117 crew, out of Waterford airport, or you drown!

People were galvanised by this messaging. It was stark, brutal, simple and to the point. Everyone understood what was needed and TDs feared for their seats, if the service was not secured for the South East region. People power won this argument as a regional and not a Waterford issue.

Are we seeing the very same weak messaging, regarding the University status for WIT/Carlow, the airport runway extension, the money for the SDZ on the north quay and so on? I would say “YES!” We have not yet stimulated the latent “People Power,” that argument is clearly simmering away underneath the surface.

How we unlock this, is the key to the region getting what every other region has, namely – adequate cardiac cover, a university, real regional investment, IDA driven FDI (not just visits) and real political influence.

We seem to be rather diffident when asking for what is ultimately, the same as every other citizen in Ireland. Do we not all pay the same taxes? Do we not all contribute equally to our societal environment? Well as far as I am aware we do.

We are very poor about shouting in a positive manner here in Waterford. We must be prepared to work as a region to deliver for everyone.

Sometimes in life, you have to be prepared to shout louder than those around you. To do this you need to be equipped to stand on the parapet. 

Just where is OUR money???

We have heard many a local radio news snippet, over recent months and read countless column inches in our local newspapers, about the millions of Euros promised for Waterford’s infrastructural projects. These projects were to be “game changers” that would bring some parity to the complete lack of “regional investment” over countless numbers of years.

Yet, we are now, how many weeks on, from the last General Election and can anyone honestly says we have received a €1 towards these so called “game changers”? So many political representatives indicated that these would bankroll Waterford’s economic future.

The North Quay, where work seems to have literally ground to a halt. Due, I am sure, to engineering concerns around weight loadings on the old, frail and fragile “piles” that are precariously holding up the hundreds of tons of rubble. This whole area has been designated as a Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), which is good news and I recall that €30 million had been promised and earmarked, by FG, to develop the site and link it directly to the City Centre. That was over 16 months ago!

Has any of this money actually been drawn down, excuse the banking terminology and allocated to Waterford Council to start this much needed regeneration process? I don’t recall hearing or seeing any big media fanfare announcing that the “cash” had been lodged into the Council coffers. Therefore I have to assume that NO money has yet been received for the SDZ to start and ultimately flourish.

This same sad story can be repeated at the Airport. We were promised many Euros to develop that runway, allowing larger jets access to Waterford and the 500,000 people of South East region. But, once again, not one cent of this appears to have come our way. In fact we are now being told that money is available for everything else, but the essential runway extension!

In the meantime, the people of the South East are discovering that Dublin is now much, much closer and easier to reach. The M9 has not a traffic light in sight and with the Newlands Cross flyover, the journey time to Dublin is more than manageable and predictable. The east coast N11/M11 route from Wexford is also to a large extent quicker than days of old and when the New Ross second bridge comes on stream, we will have a choice of two very fast direct routes to Dublin.

I also imagine that the business case for a consistent, less than two hour drive from Dublin to Waterford, is now working against us. Many FDI investors have far longer commute times to work! So the case for a regional airport in the south east diminishes even further. This assumption seems to carry some weight when we review the fact that only circa 6 FDI visits have taken place in Waterford this year! We seem once again to be on the road to becoming a less attractive alternative to many other cities and regions.

There is the ongoing debacle around UHW – no need to regurgitate the shambolic mess that some have created here.

So, these three are examples of promises that have not materialised. Money that had been “earmarked” for Waterford and yet none, nil, nada, zilch, seems to have been paid to us, to start our economic recovery and get our City and region booming once again!

On foot of the non-delivery of these funds, we are hearing far too many of our political representatives scoring points against each other. Rather than working out just where this alternative money might come from, they spin the “if we were in Government line”.

Why do other political regions deliver actual real infrastructure investment? Surely, all politicians have the same access to identical Civil Servants, who might just be able to point them in the right direction, explaining how to loosen the purse strings.

We are systematically being downgraded and this will continue unless we see the promised Euros coming our way to stem the tide.

Sadly, we appear to have too many King Cnuts (more commonly know as Canute).

“A Cup for Life” – no it is NOT an early April Fools!

Waterford City was last week left shell-shocked, by the terrible news that the Waterford to London Luton air route will yet again be pulled, cancelled and withdrawn, from our regional airport. This now means that the regional airport has once again been left floundering in a desperate search of yet another European carrier to fill this cavernous void.

The BIG question is, “Is there another carrier out there?”

It is a glaring fact, that the very fast, traffic light free M9 has made it so much easier to travel north, towards all things Dublin, and the cheap flight options which this brings. There are very few people, south of the M7 corridor, actually travelling back down the M9, towards Waterford airport and all things “Sunny South East”!

If you were in any way up to speed with this carrier’s business profile, you will have known that they have been in financial difficulties for some time now. With mounting, unsustainable losses, it was realistically only a matter of time before the inevitable happened and the business effectively ceased trading.

This bitter pill to swallow was, I am sure, discussed at last week’s full Council Plenary meeting. However I was made aware, via a media twitcher, that in the midst of yet another crisis that will adversely affect our FDI profiling and the economic stability of the city, county and region in general, some of our Councillors put forward an implausible motion (please note this motion was not passed) calling on our patchwork quilt of a Government to, and wait for it, as you are reading this correctly;

“Ban take-away coffee cups, asking the Government to introduce some sort of “Cup for Life” plan, similar to the plastic bag scheme!” Because as we all know a cup is not just for Christmas it should be for life!

Are we really going to ask all our citizens and visitors alike to carry a mug from home or a “Cup for Life” around with them whilst in work or at play? NO!!!!!

Can you imagine in 2017, tourists coming to Waterford after a weary trip down from “Up North” (the regional airport having failed to receive Government funding to extend the runway and thus attract a viable carrier). Are said tourists, expected to wander around the City Centre and dropping into one of our excellent coffee shops only to be met by someone saying to them, “I can’t serve you coffee unless you’ve brought your own cup!”

Now think this through to it’s obvious conclusion. Coffee shops could sell a “cup for life” to the customers but that might add another €3 or €4 to the price of a coffee and besides when you are on holiday the very last things you want to be looking after is a bloody coffee cup for life!!!!!!

The customer is without doubt going to think they have arrived in a banana republic, that has clearly lost all sense of reality.

Imagine yourself on holiday, in the sunny south of Spain, and you are presented with the same scenario by the tanned smouldering barista? The answer would be “Feck Off!” or at least words similar to this phrase, but maybe with a different vowel here and there! You would laugh and walk away never to return to that coffee emporium again. Or better still you would present the barista with a bucket, telling him this is your Cup for Life, and asking him to fill it to the brim, with his expensive coffee!

How do the Councillors propose controlling portion size? How do you stop insurance claims from people burning themselves? All current take away coffee cups tell you, “this cup contains hot liquid” and who is going to get THAT printed on the family’s finest bone china?

Clearly, then some of our Councillors have far too much time on their hands. Should they not be getting on with the business of making Waterford an economic powerhouse?

“A Cup for Life” – don’t make me laugh!

Programme for Government OR Room 101?

Remember this?

Room 101 originated as a BBC Radio Five programme in the early nineties and was hosted by the comedian Nick Hancock. The concept eventually moved to mainstream BBC Television and the show is currently being hosted by comedian Frank Skinner. There are also the endless repeats being shown on a “continuous loop” on the satellite channel Dave.

Room 101 was of course inspired by the novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, author George Orwell, where ALL the worst things in the World would be gathered, placed and forgotten.

The current BBC series allows us to view an endless stream of celebrates, in a panel of three, placing all manner of objects, themes, ideas, people etc into Room 101, having discussed the merits for inclusion with host Frank Skinner. As a “dip-in viewer” I have often wished that Skinner had placed all three celebrates into Room 101!

Over the years there has been an eclectic mix of “things” that have ended up in Room 101 including; the FA Cup, Postman Pat, Ferrero Rocher, Margaret Thatcher, cyclists, golf, novelty underpants, hangovers, moths and even poor old Bono!

Clearly then, Room 101 has become synonymous with somewhere to place “things” that clearly do not matter to you, me and our TDs.

I have a sense that the new Programme for Government will become Ireland’s very own Room 101!

There has been great interest in the new Government’s minestrone soup of a Programme for Government, which can be viewed on the good old interweb, through various sources. This huge 155 page document, aptly titled “A Programme for a Partnership Government” outlines ALL and I mean ALL of the proposed plans that will be carried out during the term of this 32^nd Government.

In realty this is just a big wish list or our TDs equivalent of a Dear Santa letter!

Sarah's cats.

I recall a meeting in the Granville Hotel many, many years ago when I was CEO of Waterford Chamber. The event’s Top Table was Enda Kenny and a young (younger) Simon Coveney, with George Lee conducting the proceedings. You will recall that George Lee was trumpeted by FG as the new kid on the block, the new face of FG’s Irish politics and would be the man to shape the future of FG economic policy to ensure stability and drive the country’s recovery!

In the end the dinosaur that is Irish party politics made him resign; “For the last nine months I've done my best to have an influence on that (FG economic policy), but I have to confess that I have virtually no influence, no input whatsoever.”

At this meeting we were promised in FG’s Programme for Government, should they be elected in 2011 to the 31^st Dáil, that amongst other “things”, Waterford Hospital would be suitably resourced and funded as a regional hospital, Waterford Institute of Technology would get “University” status, the south east would be supported for economic development etc etc.

In reality ALL of these promises were nothing but election husting’s spin and when push came to shove everything that was promised for Waterford was literally dumped into Room 101!

I fear that we are yet again reliving that Groundhog Day, and strangely enough the same people are promising to deliver for Waterford, yet their track recording in doing this is, well to be polite, diabolical! Yes, we have had some small wins, and these have been small wins, but the big ticket items have just not been delivered.

Who would you put in Room 101?

Proof that this Government is NOT serious about delivering for Waterford and the South East is the complete and utter lack of a FULL ministerial role for a south east TD. The last ministerial portfolio for Waterford was Cullen and our current crop of TDs are not even making the team sheet.

Rest assured that our Dublin centric TDs are lining up plenty of entries for Waterford and the south east for Room 101 – I just hope that our big ticket items do not end up back in there once again!

Our jobs and retail conundrum.

"Scoop" - a very good digger.

I like to think that I am a good “digger”, not may I add in the garden, as most things I plant unfortunately die. The green fingers in the Garland Clan definitely belong to the fairer sex – I could not even grow my GIY garlic!

What I mean is that when I wish to write about a particular topic I do my very best to dig out some research or at the very least I look for some statistical information that will help get my writing juices flowing. This in turn allows me the time to bash away on my keyboard, time and time again, so that I now really enjoy expressing my views and opinions though the medium of print.

I regularly use a number of reference sites, on the old Interweb, and the Central Statistic Office (CSO) site was used to last week garner some interesting statistics about the regional variations in a measure called Gross Added Value (GAV). This measures “the difference between production value and intermediate consumption and represents the value added by the firm.” This is a great site for statistics but I do feel that it is overly complicated to use and maybe this is deliberate so as to dissuade people from engaging.

This GAV figure is measured in Euro and the state’s average for 2012 (the last statistical data point) is €34,308, Dublin measured €51,839 and the South East came in at €23,588. Quite a significant variation then across the country, as you would expect. The South East’s high for GAV was back in 2007 when the figure was at €29,884, but this was still significantly below the state average for that year of €39,522.

This GAV figures reflects the low wages economies across the South East which should, in theory, make the SE a more competitive inward investment option.

However, a multi-national will not invest into a region based on low wages alone, it may need a specific skill set or a multi-faceted spread of skills that will ultimately help generate profit to offset what would be a multimillion Euro investment. The stakes are very high!

The low GAV also backs up the statistics that show, right across the SE, there is significantly lower disposable income for our very localised economy. After all if you have only €50 to spend at the end of the week you will spend €50 and if you have €300 the difference this makes is to our economy is considerable. This much lower disposable income directly influences the retailing opportunities in our City Centre and across the whole SE region.

Our current conundrum is this.

To get a better retail mix and a better retail branding in the City we need to see more money being spent in our local economy. But we cannot increase this spend until such times as we attract better higher paid jobs. But attracting those better higher paid jobs will affect our GAV and possibly makes us even more unattractive to future investment.

It actually is a very difficult set of balls to be juggling.

But the balls have been juggled now for many, many years and yet we appear to be no further forward in actually making Waterford and the SE an important place for increased FDI and other indigenous investment streams.

We can only improve the Status Quo by radically looking at just how attractive we are for investment, because the route we have currently chosen is clearly not working. The City, County and Region need to look for far-reaching solutions that will make the SE THE most attractive place to invest.

 

We need to be better than every other region full stop!

Perhaps one quick immediate solution is to stop looking at commercial rates as a simple cash cow and start actually incentivising investment through a lower rate structure and essentially reducing the cost of being in business in Waterford.

If we do this the future statistics will show that in 2016 was in fact a benchmark year, a year when we put Waterford back on the investment map. New foundations are needed so let us start building them now.