Imagine ALL the people!

“No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man.”

On Saturday last, we all marched, once again, for the very basic of welfare state rights. Better cardiac care, serviced by University Hospital Waterford.

I would estimate that around circa 6,000 took part in the march and I noted, perhaps for the first time on such an occasion, that there were significant numbers of “Older people” taking part. This was the silver generation getting out and voting with their feet. Something that Government should be very wary of, as this generation has real teeth (well some do)!

The social media pages have been awash with TDs’, posting pictures to let their adoring hordes know that they marched for us. With perhaps the exception of one, who has made it very clear that he will stand by his man. The youthful Minister Harris and that now infamous Herity report? A report that was given such precise “Terms of reference”, it would have been impossible to have had a different outcome.

Whilst, three quarters of the Waterford brigade were out in force, there appeared to be very little political support from our other sister counties. This is the root of our poor showing on this issue.

The national media and Government, see this as Waterford’s problem and NOT the South Easts’ problem. It suits the trolls working the corridors of power, to go out of their way to ignore so called one horse town issues. “LOOK! We are running a country.” Is that Waterford we hear moaning once again?

A Government so full of really quite clever, bright people, greedily working the system to massage their parish pump egos. We are very poor at this type of politics. It would suit our neighbours to have muted colleagues sharing a county boundary.

Unfortunately, we witnessed on Saturday little or no support from our nearest neighbours. Our fellow citizens, who are without doubt far worse off in terms of the Blues and Twos travel time, to Cork or Dublin. Swathes of Wexford are significantly over the “You’ve got 90 minutes or you might be dead”, life saving window. Yet, there seems to be absolutely little or no concern shown whatsoever?

The local newspapers across Wexford, Tipp and Kilkenny, will probably carry very very few column inches on the march. Some are just too concerned and preoccupied, with portraying Waterford Council, as acting like Adolf ‘H’ whilst attempting a 1939 style “Land grab”, than the health of a substantial proportion of their readership. They don’t see this as a regional issue. It’s as if the message is just not getting out to the people in these affected areas.

The people across the South East have for years and years, not been treated equally. There is no brotherhood of man. We pay the same taxes and yet we are constantly left short changed. Institutionalised discrimination towards Waterford appears to be a tsunami that cannot be stopped unless we have the support of those around us. Yet, getting that support will prove harder than finding a set of hen’s teeth. In fact, I fear it might be easier for us to seek out and discover, the whereabouts of the Holy Grail!

Our part-time catheterisation laboratory is of course welcome good news. Yet we have to accept the absence of no concrete plans as to when this life saving unit might arrive. Even more importantly, start operating. No one knows what those hours of operation might be? We don’t know how long it will be in situ? Will we even have sufficient extra staff to allow it to be operated efficiently? These open ended questions are just De Rigueur for Waterford. I can assure you this wouldn’t happen in Cork, Dublin or Limerick!

 

So, how do we move forward on this prickly issue? The campaign needs the urgent and fast mobilisation from the people across the region. For sure we all know that!

But here is the hard part. Is there truthfully the appetite for those people to get involved? Where are the voices asking, “We’ve got 90 minutes or we might be dead!!!!” 

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 New Year Resolutions.

Edinburgh Castle & our Hogmanay party.

In Scotland we do not celebrate the coming of the New Year we celebrate the passing of the Old Year. Our Hogmanay, which is also celebrated on the 31^st December, is quite probably a Norse and Gaelic fusion that originally celebrated the winter solstice.

Our modern version allows for a rather delightful custom of “first-footing” where, just after midnight, we would visit our neighbours, bringing them a lump of coal for their fire, whisky to warm them up and, depending on where you live, some food in the form of a type of rich fruit cake (or black bun) or even the gift of the odd pickled herring!

Auld Lang Syne lip syncing begins.

It is at this time of year, when the bells are struck at mid-night that we all stand on wobbly, booze soaked legs, we link our arms together in one big circle and sing one of Scotland’s most famous poems “Auld Lang Syne”, penned by none other than Robert Burns. This is one of those songs that we all know the chorus to but as for the other words and verses they are lost in a hail strum of slurred humming and pretend voice syncing that would do our modern day pop stars proud.

Like that other tradition, we Scots do however make the odd New Year resolution, mostly around having a healthier life style for the year ahead. We do go out of our way to make such commitments but the lure of one of our culinary contributions to world food, the deep fried mars bar, comes a calling after the Hogmanay hangover and usually within 24 hours the healthier resolution has been kicked into touch.

So what should we look for when we are considering Waterford’s New Year resolutions?

Culinary heart attack in a box!

I do hope that those with both power and influence for Waterford will have tangible 2016 New Year resolutions that will essentially deliver. For so many years we have missed out on investment whilst other neighbouring counties have benefited from so many New Year promises.

As the Government is currently awash with lots of extra tax revenue, and influencers are stuffing their own constituency ballot boxes with this extra cash, I would ask for €15 million to invest in UHW’s cardiology unit. This will allow the speedy completion of the unit and sufficient funding to run the service for the next 3, 4 or 5 years.

Another €20 million to finally deliver and create a University for Waterford and the South East with all the bells and whistles needed to attract significant research funding. Not a fudged pressure delivered hotchpotch multi-campus minestrone soup of an organisation, as is being proposed, but a REAL University based and administered in Waterford City that will clearly benefit the economic future of the entire South East.

A further €25 million to develop our North Quay, the railway station and the port to drive a whole new tourism market for Waterford and the South East. If we could develop these three vital pieces of the City’s infrastructure we could place Waterford City at the very heart of the Ireland’s Ancient East tourism project and make Waterford City the 3 or 4 night destination stop that would be the anchor for every tourist wishing to explore this Ancient East region.

Happy Hogmanay!

Only circa €60 million, and not a long term loan, would go a long way to redressing the lack of focused investment in Waterford and the South East. We are at the moment seeing our hospital, our docks/port and our third level education establishment being ever so slowly dismantled and systematically taken away from us. If we are not careful these essential pieces of infrastructure will soon disappear for good.

If we do not have strong political and public representation fighting for every Euro of the Government investment pie we will remain the City that always had concrete New Year resolutions that were never actually delivered.

We do not want to be eating deep fried Mars Bars early next year.

Happy Hogmanay!

Why we need €100 million to fix infrastructure in the region.

I was fortunate last week to be asked to speak on Newstalk’s morning breakfast radio show with Ivan Yates and Chris Donoghue. My wife, Oonagh, took a call late on Wednesday night and directed one of the programmes researchers to call me on my mobile. I took a subsequent call during one of our weekly 1848 Tricolour Celebration committee meetings having recognised the number as a one of Newstalk’s generic numbers and having noticed a couple of earlier missed calls.

I dutifully excused myself from the meeting to make a return call, in private, from the Granville Hotel. The Thursday morning’s Breakfast programme was dealing with the latest announcement, by Minister John Bruton TD, of further Government income being directed to bodies such as the IDA for further regional development – yet another report it would seem!

Having commented before on Newstalk Radio I was told that the programme wanted my observations on the announcement, the report and as an Entrepreneur and founding member of the Waterford Business Group I was asked to give an honest commentary. As with all these types of pre-interview research processes you really need to nail your colours to the mast so that the researcher is impressed with your dialogue, the tonality in your voice, your clarity of speech and your reasoned arguments, and if they are happy they will recommend you for a live interview.

My interview was duly scheduled for 07:45 on Thursday morning.

During the course of Wednesday evening a number of texts were exchanged altering the times of the live broadcast to around 09:00. As always I was trying to be accommodating, but to complicate matters the 1848 Tricolour Celebration committee had arranged a press briefing and press launch of the 2015 events programme at 08:30 on Thursday morning. All the local media were to be represented including support from the Mayor Tobin and Waterford Council. As PRO of the committee I was under a wee bit of pressure to make sure the launch was organised professionally and also ran smoothly.

But as I have always said “Pressure is for tyres and turbos!” So roll on Thursday morning.

I arrived at the Granville around 07:45 to meet with the Chair of the 1848 Committee, Ann Cusack. Some last minute printing for additional information to be included with the press packs and I was good to go for the press launch and the Newstalk interview scheduled for 09:00.

Our guests started to arrive for the 1848 Tricolour Celebration breakfast press launch; The Munster Express, the Waterford Today, the Waterford Mail, The News and Star, WLR FM, The Independent, Mayor Tobin, Waterford Council and so on. Everything was running smoothly and on time.

Phone call from Newstalk at 08:13 – live interview will now not to go ahead. Relax. This would give me more time for the press launch.

Phone call from Newstalk at 08:44 – interview back on and scheduled for 09:30. Radio head back on.

This new live interview time would give me just enough time to arrange the necessary press pictures for all the media, a few WLR FM radio interviews and then give me time to slip away, find a spot where the mobile signal was excellent and more importantly find a quiet spot just in case I had to raise my voice.

I took my last call from Newstalk at 09:30 from the sound engineer. Two or three sound checks later and I was good to go.

I never like to over prepare for live radio interviews, but I do try to map out what I want to say in my head and I know the key points I wish to reinforce. I also try to pre-empt the questions I am likely to be asked. And having been on before with Ivan Yates I knew that he would ask one relevant question at the start and then ask me one or two other questions that would perhaps be slightly controversial, just to see if I would bite back. But above all I try to make sure that I can do an interview in “one-take!”

The whole interview took just 7 or 8 minutes.

I that time I was asked just three questions and having mapped out my responses in my mind I was very happy with what I said.

The jist of what I said was that for regional policies to work in Waterford we simple need €100,000,000 to spend on the infrastructure so sadly lacking in Waterford and the South East. We need the airport runway finished but not on a shoe-string, we need the extension to be built in such a way that it future proofs the airport for generations to come. We need the north wharf developed and the necessary infrastructure built so that his part of the City can become a silk purse and not the pigs ear we currently have to look at today. We need to deliver University status for WIT and this promise was in the Programme for Government (another report I have propping up my desk), but will almost certainly not be delivered in this Governments lifespan.

These three projects alone will finally put Waterford on the map in terms of IDA investors and will make the City, County and South East a better option for future investment consideration.

As a side it has always staggered me that as Ireland’s fifth City Waterford does not have University status. A tag that is universally known to stand for investment in research and development, and a tag that says to everyone that our City is one of the best in the World. It is such a shame that the youth of Waterford and the South East have to leave (as my daughter Saoirse will have to do) if they choose to go onto third level University education.

Once upon a time Waterford City was earmarked as one of Ireland’s gateway Cities. This was supposed to give Waterford a chance of additional investment, better third level attainment and so much more. That tag is now a dim distant memory and I fear that yet another half-hearted effort to develop this region is on the cards.

I believe that the solution to regional development is very simply. Give the money to people and businesses in Waterford that will actually spend the money on the right projects that will directly benefit the region.

Do we need to create a Waterford Development Agency? Perhaps we do. But in the meantime deliver €100,000,000 to Waterford and let the Waterford People make our City the economic hub of the South East – simples!

ENDS