University status WIT

AdMMM

The full report is available here http://www.waterfordchamber.ie/goodbodywitreport

merlante

We're getting there!

A few letters to the Irish Times wouldn't go astray lads!

We have to get the ball rolling well in advance of the next general election.

OLDYELLAR

Well if that open night I was at out there last Tuesday was anything to go by , WIT couldnt organise a piss up in a brewery.
But in saying that its where I studied and got my degree and Id be all for them gaining University status.

mike65

I just skimmed the report which is substantial, the figures are pretty damning we may have the weather but not the investment or jobs.

Will anyone in the Dept of Education or Finance listen? I suspect there is quite a bit of lobbying from Universities in Cork and Dublin not to allow it. I dunno why I think that (maybe I just suspect they want our best brains to boost thier local economies).

Mike.

Bards

According to Seamus Brennan on Question & Answers (or Questions with no answers) last night he has said that this and previous governments maybe listened too much to Lobby Groups. Hopefully they will listen to the people who got/keep them in power or else it will be a change of government next time out.

Lets make this an election issue when local TD's come knocking on the door.. It would be best to have this report printed out and ask them what they think and are going to do about it.

Marcopolo85

merlante wrote:

They're not as safe as they used to be. Sinn Fein will be a big threat next time around. And anyway, when you have a cabinet minister in your constituency you have good reason to expect fair play.

In the past I would have had to agree with you, but I think those days are gone now.

We I for one sincerely hope that the Shinners are kept out of Government by all means possible. They're even more lunatic than the Greens! :rolleyes:

ishmael whale

Dac51 wrote:

I like every other PAYE worker pay my fair share of taxes. It would be nice to see that money spent fairly rather than have the goverment throw shovels of money towards an already bloated Dublin.

Just to be clear, it is simply not correct to state that Dublin benefits from taxes paid elsewhere.
http://www.cso.ie/releasespublicati...t/regincome.pdf

Page 13 of the publication linked above illustrates this. Dublin households pay €5,474 million in tax and receive €3,939 million in transfers, yielding a net €1,535 million. Mid East Region households (Kildare, Meath, Wicklow) pay €1,759 million in tax and get €1,143 million transfers, yielding a net €616 million.

Overall Irish households pay €15,047 million in tax and receive €13,174 million in social transfers. The surplus of €1,873 million can be largely attributed to the Dublin and Mid East regions combined net contribution of €2,151 million.

It’s a simple fact that Dublin and the Mid East region is an income generator for the country. If you want to find a target for a complaint of misdirection of resources, look West.

http://www.lookwest.ie/lookwest/Home/WestLiving/tabid/105/Default.aspx#_Your_Child’s_Education
56% of all 17-18 year olds in Galway and 55% in Mayo and Sligo go to college – compared with 44% nationally.

Despite the generous share of national resources enjoyed by the West, they pontificate as if they were neglected. That’s the source of your problem, not Dublin.

That said, it would seem hard to make an objective case for a University in Waterford. There’s no shortage of third level places, but we do have a problem with quality at third level. That suggests a need to improve existing Universities rather than creating a new one. Although clearly resources could be released by, say, closing the Castlebar campus of GMIT – where demand for courses is so low that its not unusual for them to be open to anyone with a leaving cert.

Ireland's universities have a problem in making the grade internationally. Take the assessment here: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500list.htm
Trinity scrapes onto the European top 100, but doesn’t make it into the global top 200. UCD and UCC don’t make it into the global top 400. The rest don’t feature at all. This is the type of issue that we should be getting exercised about. If people keep up this focus on their own county, we’re going to vote ourselves poor.

ishmael whale

There’s an article in the current ‘Waterford News’ of interest to this topic. You nearly think the speaker has gotten the point and can appreciate the need to look beyond his own county.

http://www.waterford-news.com/news/story.asp?j=19352 Fergus Cronin, chairman, Kilkenny Industrial Development Company (KIDCO) …. said, “We have looked closely at the various models and possibilities and it is now clear that the only viable option is regional and I am fully convinced that the Waterford Institute is best positioned to lead the university drive.

Then comes the punchline.

Mr Cronin added. “A physical presence for this university in Kilkenny would be important with a concentration of resources on areas of existing excellence. It is apparent that political will is the key.”

In other words, “I’m all for WIT being made a university so long as Kilkenny gets a decent share of the pork.” Similarly, remarks have been made to the effect that Carlow IT should be included in any upgrade. Which all adds in to making it hard to see the campaign to upgrade WIT having any relationship to what actually needs to be done to get Irish third level education holding its own internationally.

merlante

ishmael whale wrote:

That said, it would seem hard to make an objective case for a University in Waterford. There’s no shortage of third level places, but we do have a problem

The case for a University in Waterford is pretty solid.

There are two arguments that have to answered:
1. Is it good for the south east.
2. Is it good for Ireland.

It should be obvious that a University is needed for the prosperity of the south east: many reports have cited this, and any amount of facts and figures can be given to back this up.

You say there are no shortage of third level places. There are in the south east. Not everyone is in a position to travel to university, and when there isin't a university within 100 miles (the position of south Wexford folk) or 80 miles (Waterford City) then you are less likely to properly consider a university. (i.e. if you've never seen one)

You simply can't do all types of courses in an IT. The south east is the third largest region in the country, but it has no university. No university for a population of 450,000. Sure, a lot of people leave the south east (some never coming back) to go to university, but as many go to the WIT, a considerable number of potential students don't go to college at all. We know that there are less students and graduates in the south east than *any* other part of the country.

Many other reasons have been given in this thread for why the south east desperately needs a university.

As for the second point, is it good for Ireland? Well balanced development is good for Ireland. Waterford City (and the surrounding counties) will become another Donegal if more high tech industry is not brought to the region. The south east would cost the state more in the long run if it doesn't receive the investment.

Also, we know that the total number of students, and hence graduates, in the state is lower because there is no university in Waterford. The state needs more graduates.

The state also needs more research. What the state doesn't need is its third largest region dying on its feet.

What are the arguments against? WIT is already most of the way to becoming a university, anyway. It has the same number of students as NUI Maynooth, a university. We're not talking about building a university from scratch here.

ishmael whale wrote:

with quality at third level. That suggests a need to improve existing Universities rather than creating a new one. Although clearly resources could be released by, say, closing the Castlebar campus of GMIT – where demand for courses is so low that its not unusual for them to be open to anyone with a leaving cert.

Our standard of third level teaching is as good as anywhere else. It's research that we have to build on. Luckily pan-university research groups and collaboration is growing in Ireland. Put a bit of structure on it, and there's no reason why a research group can't operate between say Cork, Limerick and Waterford. Waterford already has a considerable research group called TSSG, by the way. Do you think we should shut it down, and disperse those fine researchers to the universities?

In short if we followed your 'pursuit of excellence' rationale to it's ultimate conclusion, we'd have one single very large university in Dublin. But that's not what we have. Instead we have smaller universities in all of the large regions, except the south east. Can we at least have a little bit of consistency?

ishmael whale wrote:

Ireland's universities have a problem in making the grade internationally. Take the assessment here: http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500list.htm
Trinity scrapes onto the European top 100, but doesn’t make it into the global top 200. UCD and UCC don’t make it into the global top 400. The rest don’t feature at all. This is the type of issue that we should be getting exercised about. If people keep up this focus on their own county, we’re going to vote ourselves poor.

This is the sort of ridiculous argument that is casually wheeled out to suppress anything that looks like a decentralisation of services.

The fact is that most of the existing universities in Ireland will never compete on an international stage. They are too small, they do not have a complete set of faculties, they don't have enough students, etc. Our universities should serve to educate third level students in the state's larger regions (such as the south east) up to a good third level standard, and offer prospects for research, etc.

The only way that most of our universities will gain international credentials is by coming together under an umbrella group, like the National University of Ireland. http://www.nui.ie/

Basically the idea is, large federal universities, with campuses in the main cities that are, to a greater or lesser extent, idependant of each other, but that can pool resources in key areas. This way, the whole of Ireland gets educated, and Ireland is 'rated' in terms of third level productivity, in terms of its wider university structures.

The argument that "we have enough universities already" was made before the establishment of UL, DCU and NUIM. The same people will be saying the same about a Waterford University. My attitude is that it has to happen, so somehow, it will.

ishmael whale

merlante wrote:

This is the sort of ridiculous argument that is casually wheeled out to suppress anything that looks like a decentralisation of services.

Drawing attention to a reasonably systematic survey that confirms that none of Ireland’s universities cuts the mustard internationally is not ridiculous. Suggesting that the upgrading of an IT in the regions to university status is more important than having even one university in the country with a decent international ranking is ridiculous and unsustainable.

That said, suggesting Waterford is a potential site for a university in the context of the national spatial strategy is not an outlandish position to have. But I think you need to put that argument more clearly in a national context. We need fewer, better quality third level places. If you were to argue that GMIT Castlebar serves no useful purpose and that it should be closed and the resources released used to enhance WIT I could see sense in what you are saying. It fits into the spatial strategy idea that the problem with regional policy to date is that resources are spread too thinly as every mickey mouse town expects to be looked after. But suggesting that upgrading WIT is more important than action to improve the international standing of, say, TCD, is simply unrealistic.

I don’t share your confidence that our third level teaching standards score higher than research. You may have some basis for saying this, but I fear it may be just the usual complacency we have about the ‘brilliance’ of our educational system. International surveys find our schoolchildren performing at a mediocre level compared to their peers abroad. I’m not aware of any survey that suggests they make this ground back at third level.

I don’t doubt that WIT is as good as any IT and probably much better than some. But can I suggest that if all that was required was a change in name it would have been done. I’ve seen a few people saying ‘sure its practically a university already’. What I’d like to see is an actual price tag on how much an upgrade will cost.

Finally, if you want the campaign to have any credibility you’ll have to tell people in Kilkenny and Carlow to get real and stop saying ‘Me too, I want a bit of a university too.’ Otherwise the whole thing just looks like another white elephant in the making.

jmcc

ishmael whale wrote:

Drawing attention to a reasonably systematic survey that confirms that none of Ireland’s universities cuts the mustard internationally is not ridiculous. Suggesting that the upgrading of an IT in the regions to university status is more important than having even one university in the country with a decent international ranking is ridiculous and unsustainable.

Are you the same troll who said that the South East should not get a Radio Therapy Facility? The same troll who seemed to be content to let cancer sufferers travel in severe pain to Cork or Dublin for the sake of some pedantic argument? The function of a university is to educate. The function of a university is not to get international awards from ultimately irrelevant committees.

But suggesting that upgrading WIT is more important than action to improve the international standing of, say, TCD, is simply unrealistic.

To Hell with TCD. It is an irrelevance to this argument. It has the same status as the Dublin Media Lab Europe - something that was also going to improve the standing of Dublin and ended up making the people behind it global village idiots.

Finally, if you want the campaign to have any credibility you’ll have to tell people in Kilkenny and Carlow to get real and stop saying ‘Me too, I want a bit of a university too.’ Otherwise the whole thing just looks like another white elephant in the making.

The most effective way to get anything done is by creating a sense of terror in the minds of political appointees and politicians. Explaining the terms of the termination of their employment in cold, harsh electoral numbers works wonders. That is political reality.

Regards...jmcc

merlante

ishmael whale wrote:

Drawing attention to a reasonably systematic survey that confirms that none of Ireland’s universities cuts the mustard internationally is not ridiculous. Suggesting that the upgrading of an IT in the regions to university status is more important than having even one university in the country with a decent international ranking is ridiculous and unsustainable.

You seem to have totally ignored my federal university argument, which is the only way that Ireland will gain a world beating university. To be honest, I'm not sure that even one university for 4 million people would even get us anywhere near the top of the world table.

In any case, you are putting the cart before the horse. The first priority of third level education is to educate the work force. When this is happening most efficiently then we can talk about the world standing of universities. In the south east, this is not happening to the degree that it should. Upgrading the WIT, the largest IT with the largest number of courses, to a University would address these issues. The country has become rich because of its graduates, not because of the standing of their universities or ITs.

It is certainly nonsense to say that NUIG or UCC will be boosted significantly up the world university rankings, simple by not upgrading the WIT!

ishmael whale wrote:

That said, suggesting Waterford is a potential site for a university in the context of the national spatial strategy is not an outlandish position to have.

To say the least. A university in Waterford makes as much, if not more, economic sense than a university in Limerick or Galway.

The "regions" should not be seen as holding Dublin back, but as genuine engines of growth. Waterford city has been an important commercial centre for many centuries, but it will become a burden without investment.

ishmael whale wrote:

But I think you need to put that argument more clearly in a national context. We need fewer, better quality third level places. If you were to

This is ridiculous. Third level teachers in Ireland are as well educated as they need to be, probably more so, and industry needs the graduates. I could agree that some courses are not as challenging as they should be, but thats neither here nor there.

ishmael whale wrote:

argue that GMIT Castlebar serves no useful purpose and that it should be closed and the resources released used to enhance WIT I could see sense in what you are saying. It fits into the spatial strategy idea that the problem with regional policy to date is that resources are spread too thinly as every mickey mouse town expects to be looked after. But suggesting that upgrading WIT is more important than action to improve the international standing of, say, TCD, is simply unrealistic.

GMIT Castlebar is vital to the economy of the area. Are you seriously suggesting that we cut off such areas completely. I don't think that Castlebar and its environs warrant a university, by a long shot, but there should be something there.

Yes there is a problem with spreading *certain* resources too thinly. Decentralisation being an example - locations should have been Gateways and maybe some hubs. However the lack of a university in Waterford and the south east (again, the state's third most populous region, after dublin and the south) is a straightforward lack of infrastructure. If we were to go by population, there should have been a university in Waterford before Galway, Limerick or Maynooth.

We may lobby for a 100 things over the next century, and we might not be given any of them, but the university alone, is something that we simply need for the city's survival, let alone prosperity.

isael whale wrote:

I don’t share your confidence that our third level teaching standards score higher than research. You may have some basis for saying this, but I fear it may be just the usual complacency we have about the ‘brilliance’ of our educational system. International surveys find our schoolchildren performing at a mediocre level compared to their peers abroad. I’m not aware of any survey that suggests they make this ground back at third level.

It is by no means established that our education system is worse than most. The point is that the graduate this is eventually produced is just as good as anywhere else. They are employed in this country by multinationals who continually stay, and re-invest in, Ireland.

Also I don't think we're that badly off in terms of research, we could just benefit a little more from economies of scale.

ishmael whale wrote:

I don’t doubt that WIT is as good as any IT and probably much better than some. But can I suggest that if all that was required was a change in name it would have been done. I’ve seen a few people saying ‘sure its practically a university already’. What I’d like to see is an actual price tag on how much an upgrade will cost.

WIT is the only IT that is fit to compare itself to a university. It's not that Waterford would not require quite a bit of investment to bring it up to the standard, but by no means are we starting from scratch.

ishmael whale wrote:

Finally, if you want the campaign to have any credibility you’ll have to tell people in Kilkenny and Carlow to get real and stop saying ‘Me too, I want a bit of a university too.’ Otherwise the whole thing just looks like another white elephant in the making.

I happen to agree with you there. Unfortunately, because I don't honestly don't think that our national government is going to merely acceed to the genuine merits of the case, we need cross-party, cross-county support for it in the south east. This entails compromise, and I agree that the current proposal is (literally) a compromised one.

We do need this desperately though. Waterford is having a lot of difficulty attracting foreign direct investment because, without a university, we simply cannot compare favourably to Galway and Limerick. Very often, Waterford is not even mentioned as a major city anymore.

ishmael whale

jmcc

I’m not sure you’re adding anything to the debate, particularly the airy dismissal of the need for our universities to register internationally as places where significant research is undertaken. Media Labs Europe was a failure. That’s part of the problem. We need to create a success.

The ratings I’ve provided are not some meaningless award from some committee. It’s a survey that grew out of China seeing a need to rate how well their third level institutions performed when compared globally. They see the importance of raising standards. Unless we’re content with becoming the new Albania we’d do well to follow their example.

You seem to be simply saying that a university be provided, regardless of whether there’s any actual justification for the project. This puts in you much the same parochial corner as Kilkenny people contemplating parading through Waterford City in their GAA jerseys to protest about the proposed administrative boundary change. As I’ve said, the case for a university is not outlandish. But you need to make it. For example, I haven’t seen any indication of what the upgrade would cost. That needs to be made clear, and its in your own interest too unless you’re satisfied with the ‘upgrade’ consisting of simply changing the name of WIT to WCU or NUIW or whatever with no actual substantive change to the institution.

Melante

I wouldn’t ignore your suggestion that only a federal university could potentially have the economies of scale to register internationally. All I'd really insist is its necessary to achieve international recognition in some way. Training loads of graduates in mediocre universities won’t keep us in the game. There’s plenty of graduates from average colleges in Eastern Europe and elsewhere to meet that demand. We need to aim considerably higher.

To be clear, I’m not saying that failing to upgrade WIT will in and of itself put TCD in the world top 100. I’m simply pointing out that resources are fixed, and more fixed than they have to be due to the abolition of third level fees. Getting even one Irish university to register internationally is more important than upgrading an IT.

That said, I can happily agree that priorities to date have been screwy and Waterford has been less favourably treated than other locations. But I’m not sure that you are following through on where this logic leads, in particular acknowledging that GMIT Castlebar (and possibly some other institutions) would not seem to be particularly useful. If something has to go, it should surely be the institutions offering low quality courses with low demand. I’d rate a WIT upgrade as a lesser priority than the need to register globally, but as a higher priority than keeping moribund institutions going just for pig iron.

When you say that ‘It is by no means established that our education system is worse than most’, in fact there was a recent survey showing that our schoolchildren do not perform well by international comparison (I think it was an OECD survey – if you’re interested I can probably dig it out.) Multinationals are here, among other things, because of our low taxes. Our cheap labour advantage is gone. Why hire someone with a Bachelor’s degree from a mediocre Irish college when you can hire someone with a Phd from a mediocre Eastern European college for less?

But, again, I’m not saying that the case for ‘NUIW’ is outlandish. Just that it needs to clearly fit into a sensible national strategy.

jmcc

ishmael whale wrote:

I’m not sure you’re adding anything to the debate, particularly the airy dismissal of the need for our universities to register internationally as places where significant research is undertaken. Media Labs Europe was a failure. That’s part of the problem. We need to create a success.

No. The function of the university is to educate. It is not to statisfy the criteria of some self-perpetuating mediocrity. Media Lab Europe was a failure because it was run by cretins and created by intellectual midgets. It never had any standing and indeed, in the international research community, MLE and ML are very much a long running joke. Real research is being done in Ireland. You just don't hear very much about it because it is often specialised and theoretical. There has been a major problem in commericalising that research in the past but that seems to be changing for the better.

The ratings I’ve provided are not some meaningless award from some committee. It’s a survey that grew out of China seeing a need to rate how well their third level institutions performed when compared globally.

The function of a university is to educate. The Chinese universities are primarily concerned with providing the opportunities to the people intheir cachement areas.

You seem to be simply saying that a university be provided, regardless of whether there’s any actual justification for the project.

There is justification for the project. The Southeast needs a university. I happen to be one of those people who remember that Waterford is Ireland's first city and as such I don't take kindly to dubious "surveys" being used to deny Waterford what it requires.

Getting even one Irish university to register internationally is more important than upgrading an IT.

You sound like someone who has never done any research. This is not the Middle Ages where a university is the greatest concentration of a country's intellect. The current range of research is so vast that it is difficult for a university to get recognised for a wide range of research. In fact unversities get recognised for their specialties. And WIT via its TSSG is far more internationally recognised for its work in telecommunications than most of the Dublin colleges. Since Dublin has enough universities - one poster here claimed that there were empty places, why not eliminate a few of them and create better, regional universities starting with Waterford?

Regards...jmcc

merlante

ishmael whale wrote:

Melante

I wouldn’t ignore your suggestion that only a federal university could potentially have the economies of scale to register internationally. All I'd really insist is its necessary to achieve international recognition in some way. Training loads of graduates in mediocre universities won’t keep us in the game. There’s plenty of graduates from average colleges in Eastern Europe and elsewhere to meet that demand. We need to aim considerably higher.

Our 3rd level teachers are all very well qualified, usually phd level. This is easily enough to bring a student up to degree level. Graduates will be as good as their individual ability is; individual ability is the biggest factor. You seem to be hinting that it would be better if only the best potential graduates were allowed to go to college. However, the fact is, the economy needs mediocre graduates just as much as good graduates. While I agree that in the future we'll need to upskill our workforce to fend off competition from eastern europe, etc., the point is that we don't have the R&D in business in this country yet, to put an upskilled workforce in to.

It's not the quality of graduates, per say, that gives a country prestige, anyway, it's the countries that have shown that they can respond to the interests of business. That is Ireland. We are continually gaining a reputation for our research also.

Additionally, can I ask you if there is any room in your world for the arts? Universities exist to educate 1st (as has been said), and to serve the economy, 2nd. Some courses won't yield graduates that will 'directly' add to the economy. Galway benefits from its arts courses, Waterford IT as an IT, cannot offer any arts courses.

ishmael whale wrote:

To be clear, I’m not saying that failing to upgrade WIT will in and of itself put TCD in the world top 100. I’m simply pointing out that resources are fixed, and more fixed than they have to be due to the abolition of third level fees. Getting even one Irish university to register internationally is more important than upgrading an IT.

I am quite sure that failing to upgrade WIT will not benefit TCD all that much. I am also quite sure that failing to do so will have a huge impact on Waterford and the south east! Also, resources in education need not be fixed.

I totally disagree that having a university recognised in the top 100 in the world, etc. is worth as much as you say. We have not suffered in the slightest degree from this not being the case. Nobody expects a small country like Ireland to be rated on such a table anyway. However as I have explained to you time and time again. Waterford *needs* a university.

Universities in this country, whether you like it or not, are provided on a regional basis, and the south east is the only large region without a university. I have also explained that the country produces less graduates because of that fact.

The costs of upgrading WIT are tiny compared with those costs entailed in order to bolster a university to the top of some table. And upgrading WIT will, in my view, yield more of a benefit, and better value for money. WIT should be upgraded ASAP, and then work can begin on a federal university approach, which is by far the most likely to get us the international recognition that you are talking about.

ishmael whale wrote:

That said, I can happily agree that priorities to date have been screwy and Waterford has been less favourably treated than other locations. But I’m not sure that you are following through on where this logic leads, in particular acknowledging that GMIT Castlebar (and possibly some other institutions) would not seem to be particularly useful. If something has to go, it should surely be the institutions offering low quality courses with low demand. I’d rate a WIT upgrade as a lesser priority than the need to register globally, but as a higher priority than keeping moribund institutions going just for pig iron.

I'm saying that GMIT castlebar, fullfills a need in Mayo. Mayo people have to be educated as well you know. You seem to be under the impression that the entire country can and should move to Dublin to receive their 3rd level education! This is totally unrealistic and does not lend itself to the good spread of 3rd level graduates that we more or less have currently. Small regions should receive less infrastructure. Mayo needs GMIT. Waterford and the south east needs a university.

Nothing has to go, closing ITs would be like closing the railways: a really dumb idea. My logic does not lead to rampant decentralisation, just appropriate decentralisation. Your logic is for absolute centralisation. As a self assured individual from the capital (I guess) who has never wanted for anything, you look abroad to see how Ireland (read 'Dublin') can increase its international prestige, you happily ignore the internal educational issues that this country faces.

Just imagine for a moment that you are living between 1800 and 1922, Dublin is not the centre of the universe, London is, and TCD and UCD are held back by arguments that educational funding be concentrated in London. All of a sudden, you'd find yourself making the same arguments for Dublin as I am making for Waterford. Nobody likes to see their city dealt with in a heavy handed (and unfair) fashion.

ishmael whale wrote:

But, again, I’m not saying that the case for ‘NUIW’ is outlandish. Just that it needs to clearly fit into a sensible national strategy.

Is Waterford not a gateway in the strategy? What are you talking about?

I think I have done enough arguing about the Waterford case. Perhaps it is time that you explained to me why the midwest or western regions should have a universty when the south east, a more populous region, should not?

Or perhaps you think that UL and NUIG should go?

jmcc

merlante wrote:

Additionally, can I ask you if there is any room in your world for the arts? Universities exist to educate 1st (as has been said), and to serve the economy, 2nd. Some courses won't yield graduates that will 'directly' add to the economy. Galway benefits from its arts courses, Waterford IT as an IT, cannot offer any arts courses.

This is an interesting point. As someone from the techie side of things, the overwhelming ethos was that we were intellectually better than those who did arts (a strange generalisation that was right in some cases and was completely wrong in others). However WIT has always had an art deparment and the fusion between multimedia and art has even resulted in a multimedia degree which draws from both the technology field and the arts field. The problem is that the term "arts" covers such a wide range of subjects from pure art to mindnumbing literary criticism. The growth of arts courses can probably be tied to increasing income and that income has to be generated somewhere.

It is galling to see the ghetto universities funding psuedo-science degrees and courses when the money could be better spent elsewhere. The arts may not be as essential to a good university as they once were. However a centres of excellence approach to the arts might be a better way to free up resources for more pressing educational courses.

Regards...jmcc

mike65

You seem to be simply saying that a university be provided, regardless of whether there’s any actual justification for the project. This puts in you much the same parochial corner as Kilkenny people contemplating parading through Waterford City in their GAA jerseys to protest about the proposed administrative boundary change. As I’ve said, the case for a university is not outlandish. But you need to make it. For example, I haven’t seen any indication of what the upgrade would cost. That needs to be made clear, and its in your own interest too unless you’re satisfied with the ‘upgrade’ consisting of simply changing the name of WIT to WCU or NUIW or whatever with no actual substantive change to the institution.

Just read the Goodbodys report. They estimate university would generate 100 million euro of busines a year for the region I'd say the upgrade would therefore pay for itself pretty quickly. Not that the cost or payback period should be a primary consideration. Its the brain-drain thats important.

Mike.

ishmael whale

jmcc wrote:

Real research is being done in Ireland. You just don't hear very much about it because it is often specialised and theoretical.

While there’s no particular reason why you should agree with every detail of what Merlante says, can I point out he doesn’t seem to be denying the essential reality that Ireland does not host much research. That’s the essential finding of the survey I’ve posted up, and to be honest I think you’ll find much the same perception in contributions made by IDA etc. I think you’re going out on a limb with your apparent belief that everything’s fine, its just that the Daily Star doesn’t have a nerd page so the great unwashed haven’t a clue

jmcc wrote:

The Chinese universities are primarily concerned with providing the opportunities to the people in their cachement areas.

You’re stepping around the point rather than dealing with it. The Chinese are trying to measure quality. Are you suggesting that mediocrity is good enough in Ireland?

jmcc wrote:

Waterford is Ireland's first city and as such I don't take kindly to dubious "surveys" being used to deny Waterford what it requires.

What a convincing case you’re making. So that’s a university for the Hill of Tara.

jmcc wrote:

This is not the Middle Ages where a university is the greatest concentration of a country's intellect.

The point, as acknowledge by Merlante, is the there is very little private sector R&D. So we’re sort of stuck with the universities to start with.

jmcc wrote:

Since Dublin has enough universities - one poster here claimed that there were empty places, why not eliminate a few of them and create better, regional universities starting with Waterford?

The main hook that got me into this thread was a comment by an earlier contributor implying that Dublin benefited from taxes gathered in the regions, when the truth is exactly the reverse. I have a major problem when someone lets their ‘Dublin’ hump cloud their thinking. As with the sub post office issue you’ll find there’s very little problem in removing redundant facilities from Dublin. The problem lies elsewhere.

ishmael whale

merlante wrote:

While I agree that in the future we'll need to upskill our workforce to fend off competition from eastern europe, etc., the point is that we don't have the R&D in business in this country yet, to put an upskilled workforce in to.

I agree that upgrading third level is only part of the picture. There’s also factor like the simple fact that Irish people tend to invest in property rather than start-ups, and the general weakness of the indigenous private sector. But its an agenda that we need to address.

merlante wrote:

Additionally, can I ask you if there is any room in your world for the arts?

Certainly. By coincidence I’ve just finished a book by Desmond Fennell (don’t laugh) and one point I feel he’s right on is the lack of intellectual debate in Ireland, and the absence of any worthwhile Irish contribution to global debates. He wrote this in 1983 but you can run it forward to today and contemplate, for example, our complete absence from debates on the Gulf War or our non-engagement with EU other than as a cash cow.

merlante wrote:

Also, resources in education need not be fixed.

mike65 wrote:

They estimate university would generate 100 million euro of busines a year for the region I'd say the upgrade would therefore pay for itself pretty quickly. .

The case for ‘NUIW’ has to state a price and suggest where than price can be found. I can’t accept it should come at the cost of raising standards in existing universities. I could accept it coming from closure of unneeded and underperforming facilities or from a general re-introduction of third level fees. The €100 million is a notional figure, which probably includes whatever extra cash the state would need to stump up. It’s not sitting in a bank account somewhere, waiting for Mary Hanafin to write a cheque. Is the initial cost actually known? Where’s it going to come from?

merlante wrote:

Nobody expects a small country like Ireland to be rated on such a table anyway

Out of the old EU 15, Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Luxembourg are the ones that don’t have any universities on the European top 100. Apart from these, even the smaller states each have a couple of entries. And, picking a country with roughly our population, Norway has one. If we’re serious about Ireland developing this is a necessary and important target.

merlante wrote:

You seem to be under the impression that the entire country can and should move to Dublin to receive their 3rd level education!

No, but I am suggesting that Mayo people would very likely continue to participate strongly at third level if the Castlebar campus was closed both in other institutions in the region and elsewhere. As with your comparison of Dublin vs London, it’s a question of scale vs decentralisation. I’m simply suggesting that the very low entry requirements for GMIT Castlebar suggests its courses are not in demand, and that makes it a candidate for closure, or to be less extreme, rationalisation. I’m simply pointing out that there are resources devoted to third level that don’t seem to be achieving very much.

merlante wrote:

Why the midwest or western regions should have a universty when the south east, a more populous region, should not? Or perhaps you think that UL and NUIG should go?

I can think of no reason why the needs of the SE should take second place to smaller regions but, as should be clear, I’m totally comfortable with the idea that some third levels institutions might be surplus to requirements. Not necessarily UL or NUIG, although I’ve an open mind and I certainly associate overprovision with the West. Anticipating the reaction of some, I don’t think IT Tallaght or any Dublin college is sacrosanct in this context. But, as I’ve said, closure of redundant facilities in Dublin is rarely a problem.

I think the main thing of interest is how much it would cost to turn WIT into NUIW. If it truly was a paltry sum it would surely just have been done. If the cost is significant, then the issue of how this impacts on other colleges simply has to be recognised.

Alternatively, you may find this is another reason to reintroduce third level fees

jmcc

ishmael whale wrote:

While there’s no particular reason why you should agree with every detail of what Merlante says, can I point out he doesn’t seem to be denying the essential reality that Ireland does not host much research.

Ireland does host a lot of research in relation to its size. The problem is that it is specialised and a lot is theoretical. Therefore the average clueless Irish Times reader would be unlikely to read about it because the people it employs as technology journalists just haven't the technological background to appreciate what goes on in Ireland. Hell most of their "technology journalists" couldn't tell one end of a soldering iron from the other.

That’s the essential finding of the survey I’ve posted up, and to be honest I think you’ll find much the same perception in contributions made by IDA etc.

Does IDA still exist?

I think you’re going out on a limb with your apparent belief that everything’s fine, its just that the Daily Star doesn’t have a nerd page so the great unwashed haven’t a clue

I'm sure that you, as an avid reader of said publication, could always pitch such a column to them. I don't think everything is fine. I just know it is not as bad as you make out. While you seek some kind of justification in the eyes of mediocre committees, researchers in Ireland know that results are the only justification required.

You’re stepping around the point rather than dealing with it. The Chinese are trying to measure quality. Are you suggesting that mediocrity is good enough in Ireland?

How very Confucian of me. The committees are just a perpetuation of mediocrity looking for some raison d'etre. They find it in the gullible fools such as yourself who take them seriously.

So that’s a university for the Hill of Tara.

So it is you, the same pedant who wanted cancer sufferers from the South East to make the agonising trip to Cork or Dublin for Radio Therapy because you and the discredited reports you relied upon said that the SE was not worthy of an RT facility. You should be more careful about reusing the same tired old arguments.

The point, as acknowledge by Merlante, is the there is very little private sector R&D.

Rubbish. You haven't a clue about private sector R&D. The R&D goes on but the public generally only sees the end result.

So we’re sort of stuck with the universities to start with.

No. Private sector R&D often excludes universities because of parasitical intellectual rights agreements that give the universities unearned rights over any products. So would I develop a product with TSSG or some ghetto university with no expertise in telecoms? Take a guess at the answer.

Regards...jmcc

merlante

ishmael whale wrote:

The case for ‘NUIW’ has to state a price and suggest where than price can be found. I can’t accept it should come at the cost of raising standards in existing universities. I could accept it coming from closure of unneeded and underperforming facilities or from a general re-introduction of third level fees. The €100 million is a notional figure, which probably includes whatever extra cash the state would need to stump up. It’s not sitting in a bank account somewhere, waiting for Mary Hanafin to write a cheque. Is the initial cost actually known? Where’s it going to come from?

I'm not sure what the cost would be. Probably between 50 and 100 million. Aside from the recurrent costs of WIT/NUIW going up by about 20/30%, this figure is a one time investment. The state could simply absorb this one time cost, as they do the motorways or any other type of infrastructure, that will stand us in good stead in to the future.

I like the way you say that the case for an 'NUIW' must suggest a price and essentially do all the convincing. You were fairly happy to disgregard the case entirely until some of us spent time patiently responding to your concerns. Are we going to have make the same arguments to every Irish Times reader, or will some of them actually go to the bother of looking at the facts first, instead of dismissing the very idea as regional begging or lobby fodder.

ishmael whale wrote:

Out of the old EU 15, Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Luxembourg are the ones that don’t have any universities on the European top 100. Apart from these, even the smaller states each have a couple of entries. And, picking a country with roughly our population, Norway has one. If we’re serious about Ireland developing this is a necessary and important target.No, but I am suggesting that Mayo people would very likely continue to participate strongly at third level if the Castlebar campus was closed both in other institutions in the region and elsewhere. As with your comparison of Dublin vs London, it’s a question of scale vs decentralisation. I’m simply suggesting that the very low entry requirements for GMIT Castlebar suggests its courses are not in demand, and that makes it a candidate for closure, or to be less extreme, rationalisation. I’m simply pointing out that there are resources devoted to third level that don’t seem to be achieving very much. I can think of no reason why the needs of the SE should take second place to smaller regions but, as should be clear, I’m totally comfortable with the idea that some third levels institutions might be surplus to requirements. Not necessarily UL or NUIG, although I’ve an open mind and I certainly associate overprovision with the West. Anticipating the reaction of some, I don’t think IT Tallaght or any Dublin college is sacrosanct in this context. But, as I’ve said, closure of redundant facilities in Dublin is rarely a problem.

As I said, I don't see a Waterford upgrade as working against our international standing. You seem to have dismissed the federal university approach, which is the only way that we can provide regional education (you know the 3 million people who live outside of Dublin city) and at the same time achieve some sort of reputation and scale.

Scale versus decentralisation indeed. What we've decided in this country is that we will place one university in every large region. At the moment we have one university for every 575,000 people. Yet with for a region of 450,000, the south east, we have no university. If we were to be consistent and create an 'NUIW', we would have 1 university for every 500,000. So, one way or the other, you are talking about a university for every half million people. This is what the government seems happy with. I don't think this balance is going to be much tampered with in the years to come. I disagree that it should be possible to remove any regional university because it plays such a crucial role in the local economy, and of course provides vital education. Besides these institutions are always over subscribed anyhow.

If GMIT is truly a failure, then yes it should go, but we'd really have to be sure that it is not working out, and that it won't be viable in the future either. Think of the railways.

ishmael whale wrote:

I think the main thing of interest is how much it would cost to turn WIT into NUIW. If it truly was a paltry sum it would surely just have been done. If the cost is significant, then the issue of how this impacts on other colleges simply has to be recognised.

Alternatively, you may find this is another reason to reintroduce third level fees

Money should be found for this, no matter how much it costs. Quite simply 100m spent on a university in the south east would give us much more bang for our buck then spending 100m on some scheme(s) designed to hoist a university/or universities up in to the European top 100.

A south east with no university would consign 12% of the country's population to the fate that Donegal is suffering now, rather than making the region the economic equal of the midwest or the west. This would certainly impact Ireland more than any theoretical advantage that could be gained from trying to boost a university on to some top 100 table.

Ireland does not need a region that has the (growing) population but nonetheless is not performing.

Dac51

ishmael whale wrote:

The main hook that got me into this thread was a comment by an earlier contributor implying that Dublin benefited from taxes gathered in the regions, when the truth is exactly the reverse. I have a major problem when someone lets their ‘Dublin’ hump cloud their thinking.

I am that contributor. Ok, I may have been blunt singling Dublin out but as merlante mentioned in a previous post you seem like a Dublin person "who wants for nothing".

People like me living in Waterford watch the news and read the papers each day. We see Port Tunnels being built, extra lanes for the M50 motorway, 2 full radiotherapy facilities being built, LUAS, second terminals for Dublin Airport etc. These all have to be paid for by taxpayers, i.e. you and me.

In Waterford (and in other regions) the begging bowl has to be put out if any projects are needed. Cases have to be made for radiotherapy, roads, universities. In Dublin (and I would include the West in this example) there is no need to justify anything or make a case. It just happens. Because it is Dublin (or Galway).

I suppose the point I am trying to make is that as a taxpayer I contribute to government funds. All I would ask is for a fair share of that money to flow into the regions without having to lower ourselves to begging to central government.

ishmael whale

jmcc wrote:

I don't think everything is fine. I just know it is not as bad as you make out. While you seek some kind of justification in the eyes of mediocre committees, researchers in Ireland know that results are the only justification required.

I suppose there’s no hope that you might actually substantiate your view that Ireland is a reasonably happening R&D location with some links? Like what I did when I said our third level sector didn’t do well in international comparisons? Or maybe research just isn't your thing.

jmcc wrote:

So it is you, the same pedant who wanted cancer sufferers from the South East to make the agonising trip to Cork or Dublin for Radio Therapy because you and the discredited reports you relied upon said that the SE was not worthy of an RT facility.

Before you try to canonise yourself and the Waterford RT campaign, you might recall that no-one in the SE seems terribly worried about the final decision leaving Donegal people getting their service in Belfast. It looks like everyone is happy enough with the idea that someone else should do the travelling.

merlante wrote:

The state could simply absorb this one time cost, as they do the motorways or any other type of infrastructure

When you say “absorb” the cost, that still amounts to money coming from somewhere. For example, as we know road tolling will be an increasing feature – the cost of motorways is not simply being ‘absorbed’.

merlante wrote:

I like the way you say that the case for an 'NUIW' must suggest a price and essentially do all the convincing. You were fairly happy to disgregard the case entirely until some of us spent time patiently responding to your concerns. Are we going to have make the same arguments to every Irish Times reader, or will some of them actually go to the bother of looking at the facts first, instead of dismissing the very idea as regional begging or lobby fodder.

Yes, I expect you’ll have to make a coherent case which includes costs and everything. Yes, you’ll also have to bridge an initial credibility gap because of a long history of lobbying for bizarre projects. I wouldn’t particularly blame the Irish Times for this. I would blame the West.

merlante wrote:

I don't see a Waterford upgrade as working against our international standing.

Clearly the upgrade in and of itself won’t. But third level resources are tight, there being no fee income. So clearly resources used for one end are denied to another. There has to be some knock on impact somewhere. I don’t see the problem in raising this funding by eliminating unnecessary courses, or recognising that the West is the place that currently seems to be overprovided.

merlante wrote:

you know the 3 million people who live outside of Dublin city

Dac51 wrote:

We see Port Tunnels being built, extra lanes for the M50 motorway, 2 full radiotherapy facilities being built, LUAS, second terminals for Dublin Airport etc. These all have to be paid for by taxpayers, i.e. you and me. In Waterford (and in other regions) the begging bowl has to be put out if any projects are needed.

The picture of Dublin’s privileged position persists, but it is wrong. All of the projects you mention are following on after the need for them has become critical and several – the extra M50 lane and the airport’s second terminal – only exist on paper. As to funding, I understand that increased Dublin airport charges will pay for the second terminal (Dublin travellers are also carrying the cost of the debt incurred upgrading Cork and Shannon airports). The M50 upgrade looks likely to be funded by tolls. The operation of Luas is self financing and, per passenger, the capital cost incurred is only a fraction of what was spent upgrading the Limerick Ennis line.
Dublin has to wait and pay for whatever it gets. This experience is not shared by other parts of the country. My favourite example is the way that Dublin Airport’s runway was deliberately built too short to take fully laden cargo aircraft in a blunt attempt to divert business to Shannon. The continuance of the Shannon stopover also killed any hope of Dublin become a regional hub. The main beneficiary of all this is Manchester airport and the main loser is Ireland. The bottom line is the West has a lot to answer for and Dublin as a region gets a lot of undeserved blame.

Bards

There are a number of reasons Waterford IT is not going to be made a university and they are

1.) Cork IT will want to be upgraded aka when WRTC beacame WIT, Cork imediataly changed their name to CIT and kicked up such a fuss that all RTC's became IT's. Remember they have more TD's than Waterford

2) The University Sector Lobby group will not want another Universtiy because the cake will have to be diveded more. I.E less money for the Existing University's

3.) Politics, Politics and Politics. South East reminds me of Northern Politics. Always fighting with each other. Instead of representing the region with one voice like the West we all have our own agenda.

Remember when Fine Gael was last in power a certain Wexford Minister decided that Waterford was getting all the jobs in the region so in his wisdom he removed the South East director of the IDA from Waterford and let Cork look after us.

What did this achieve.. hardly any new IDA sponsored jobs in the South East Region in the last ten years while Cork, Dublin & Galway/Limerick got them all

merlante

Regarding research in Ireland, there is a lot of research going on in the university sector. I wouldn't be concerned about that.

The problem is that industry is not reciprocating, because the government has not funded indigenous R&D actively enough. It has no problem giving Intel large grants (until the EU said no) but it doesn't seem to have the same confidence for giving grants for indigenous R&D companies. For example, some of largest employers in the state, Intel and Dell, are high tech companies, however they do very little R&D in Ireland. Like with most US multinationals in Ireland, the R&D happens in the states, and the lower grade stuff happens in Ireland.

Since you, ishmael, were also apparently against the Radiotherapy campaign, it would seem to me that you fundamentally have a problem with (or a resistance to) the south east receiving infrastructure. (i.e. we must justify everything to the nth degree) The West, once again a smaller region, automatically received a radiotherapy unit, and I wouldn't begrudge them one, but the radiotherapy campaign in Waterford was a fine example of a piece of infrastructure that was clearly required, but was only delivered after protracted lobbying. We don't want to have to lobby for basic necessities, for a population of 450,000, there simply shouldn't be a problem. You say that we have a reputation for lobbying for crazy things. I would absolutely dispute that. Places like Galway have lobbied themselves in to riches; Waterford has been too quiet in the past, and quiet places are forgotten about by successive governments. We have only ever lobbied for things that were absolutely necessary.

And yes, I agree, the position of Donegal people having to travel to Belfast is an absolute bloody disgrace. It is typical of this government to stamp on the weak. Although, I would have thought they could have been accomodated in Derry.

Resources are not tight, we are living in a rich country, remember? Money is, and can be, found for one off infrastructure projects such as an upgrade of WIT. Particularly since we're running a surplus at the moment. The fact that the government is happy to squeeze the university sector at the moment is of no relevance. Perhaps you should be calling for the government to loosen its purse strings with regard to the third level sector, instead of saying that funds are more or less fixed and that the WIT should wait until the end of time. For example the motorways programme is costing something like 2.5 billion a year out of a total transport budget of 3 billion. These costs are borne because they are absolutely necessary one off projects. In a few years, that 2.5 billion will be funnelled elsewhere. In the case of vital infrastructure, it is even advisable to borrow to put them in place. (luckily, we don't have to at present)

'NUIW' would generate 100 million a year, for an investment of about 50-100 million (I guess) and 20/30% higher recurrant running costs. It seems that an 'NUIW' would be a good investment for the country to make. The alternative is to wait until Waterford's manufacturing industry is decimated, followed swiftly by the call centres, AOL, NTL, etc. and then try to pick up the pieces afterwards. Then the south east would become a black hole of expense for the exchequer for god knows how many years.

I realise that it is up to Waterford to provide the case for an upgrade. However, if it was Galway, nobody would even question it. Waterford are seen as beggars because they have to beg. Galway is seen as enlightened and cosmopolitan, because it never has to beg. You can't blame Waterford people for begging, we have been brought to our knees by the government. (and the likes of the Irish Times) This is not paranoia, and can be seen by doing quick comparison with the Galway situation. The Irish Times have had a full part to play in this; as the 'paper of record' they often don't mention Waterford as one of the major cities, and disregard the WIT. Waterford is not much smaller than Galway, but the likes of the Irish Times portray the situation very differently.

I have no problem at all with the level of funding that Dublin gets. I was merely countering the view that it would be acceptable to centralise education, or anything else, in the capital. We are a sparsely populated country so we must always make a compromise between scale and distribution of services. Universities, which provide vital third level education are needed in the regions. We need about 8 universities in Ireland, 2/3 International Airports, a radiotherapy unit for the same spread as th universities, etc. I am not suggesting that Waterford should have an International airport, but it should certainly have a University and a Radiotherapy unit. The spread of things like radiotherapy units and universities is largely correct: the lack of a university in Waterford is an anomaly.

merlante

Bards wrote:

There are a number of reasons Waterford IT is not going to be made a university and they are

1.) Cork IT will want to be upgraded aka when WRTC beacame WIT, Cork imediataly changed their name to CIT and kicked up such a fuss that all RTC's became IT's. Remember they have more TD's than Waterford

2) The University Sector Lobby group will not want another Universtiy because the cake will have to be diveded more. I.E less money for the Existing University's

3.) Politics, Politics and Politics. South East reminds me of Northern Politics. Always fighting with each other. Instead of representing the region with one voice like the West we all have our own agenda.

That's very pessimistic in my view. It looks like the south east is finally coming together on a proposal that they will all support at the moment. While it isin't perfect, it gives us regional support. This will hopefully address your first and third points.

As for number 2, The University Sector Lobby group, will be a problem, but hopefully not insurmountable. I'm sure we'll be hammered by the Irish Times and the likes of Newstalk 106 as well, but we simply have to fight these groups at all levels.

Please try to be a little bit more positive about the whole thing. The fact that Waterford people never believed in the past that we would get anything, means that governments have used this pessimism to deny us, where more exuberant, and therefore more expectant, parts of the country have found things a lot easier.

ishmael whale

Regarding research in Ireland, there is a lot of research going on in the university sector.

I can only call again for this point to be substantiated.

It has no problem giving Intel large grants (until the EU said no) …Like with most US multinationals in Ireland, the R&D happens in the states, and the lower grade stuff happens in Ireland. .

Completely agree. By stopping the Intel grant package the EU is really only pushing us in the direction we need to go anyway.

Since you, ishmael, were also apparently against the Radiotherapy campaign, it would seem to me that you fundamentally have a problem (or a resistance to) with the south east receiving infrastructure.

Not at all, its simply that any significant project demanding public funds needs to be justified. On RT, consensus medical opinion (i.e. the general view of such Irish people as actually know how to treat cancer) was the best way to rapidly ramp up services nationally was to concentrate on four centres in three locations. The decision to provide RT services in Waterford and Limerick is mostly political. The Irish Cancer Society expressed support for the original plan when it was announced. Would you interpret their position as evidence of a fundemental objection to infrastructure in the SE?

You say that we have a reputation for lobbying for crazy things. I would absolutely dispute that.

Apologies, I wasn’t clear in what I was saying. I don’t regard the SE as making outlandish demands. What I meant was demands from the SE come up on the same agenda that includes fruitcake ideas like the Western Rail Corridor. ‘NUIW’ is a perfectly reasonable proposal, but it gets lost in the general hubbub – which is pretty much what you’re saying.

However, all this runs the risk of creating a discussion where none is necessary. As I see it we have differing but not irreconcilable views on the relative priority that needs to be given to, on the one hand, upgrading existing universities and, on the other, upgrading WIT. I think the main point of disagreement at this stage is simply money. Yes, there’s certainly enough money in the country to place additional investment in third level. The problem is so many other demands get in the way which means what gets funded turns into a lottery.

For example, the Government decentralisation plan will cost a pile of money and achieve very little. I don’t see how the SE will find its position greatly changed because a few civil servants are doing their shopping in Lidl in Ardkeen instead of Lidl in Blanchardstown. Yet, decentralisation is what’s being pushed ahead of substantive projects like a university. Decentralisation as proposed will do nothing for the regions but still cost a packet.

Of which vague wanderings half brings me back to thinking that what’s really needed is a reintroduction of third level fees. But how do you get that onto the agenda?

merlante

I work in a university, and I see what I would consider a lot of reasearch going on. I gather that jmcc has some attachment to WIT and has the same opinion. If you have any particular evidence that this is not the case, then lets see it.

There were an equal number of experts saying that the 'centres of excellence' 4 centres was *not* the optimal approach. These experts were not of course given the same shrift by the Irish Times. All we needed was a machine and someone who knew how to operate it; Galway and Cork could have had their 'centres of excellence'. All the south east wanted was a centre of live saving. You have obviously never heard any of the many. many stories of anguish from cancer sufferers having to say goodbye to their families at 5 or 6am so that they could get to St. Lukes hospital, 1 taxi and 3 buses later. These are *very* sick people remember. You seem to be ignoring the fact that you can't concentrate on centres of excellence without first establishing a sufficient coverage across the larger regions. Omitting Limerick and Waterford was a scandal of the highest degree. The handling of the radiotherapy report, etc. was handled very suspiciously by the government. May I also say that Michael Martin had no intention of relenting to political pressure, and that Mary Harney could easily have followed the same course but choose instead to see the wisdom of the case.

By the time the government eventually copped on, Limerick had actually *bought* their own radiotherapy machine. Can you imagine the desperation of needing something so much that you have to self-fund national health infrastructure? This is nothing short of a disgrace. Waterford, for their part, had attracted a private company to the city that would provide radiotherapy to public patients under some scheme that would have eventually have costed the state more than actually building the unit in Waterford. I can tell you are an avid Irish Times reader, but you should realise that the Irish Times has as many of its own biases as you probably think we have.

The decentralisation plan is flawed in its implementation, if it ever happens at all. However you underestimate the impact of 200/300 jobs would make in a small town. Each civil service job would generate around 3 more jobs downstream in the service industry, etc. Also it helps to insulate the local workforce to some degree against bad economic times. You really don't realise how sweet you have it in Dublin!

Also I happen to believe that the Western rail corridor and indeed a Western motorway is vital to the national spatial strategy which seeks to create a counter balance to Dublin. There is currently nothing even like a direct route between Waterford and Galway/Sligo on any form of transport. This infrastructure would pay for itself in time.

ishmael whale

merlante wrote:

I work in a university, and I see what I would consider a lot of reasearch going on. I gather that jmcc has some attachment to WIT and has the same opinion. If you have any particular evidence that this is not the case, then lets see it.

My initial particular evidence is the survey I’ve posted above that suggests our research doesn’t register. Its not enough to say ‘there’s loads of people around me doing some kind of research or other’. You have to show some evidence that this research is actually of value.

merlante wrote:

There were an equal number of experts saying that the 'centres of excellence' 4 centres was *not* the optimal approach.

In an earlier discussion on this topic on ‘politics.ie’ I asked for any expert opinion that supported the Waterford RT campaign, as distinct from local campaigner opinion. None was provided at that time. On the other hand it was possible to find the Department of Health’s report on the matter, and statements by the Irish Cancer Society and by the chair of the Irish Cancer Forum supporting that report. None of that material came from ‘ireland.com’.

merlante wrote:

These are *very* sick people remember.

In the final event Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick will have their own centres. Partly that means there’s not a lot of point in discussing the topic – the issue is resolved. But I would draw your attention to the fact that only a minority of the population will actually have an RT centre close to them.
Most people will have to travel. And that’s probably inevitable. Why not an RT service for Athlone/Mullingar/Tullamore, which are jointly deemed an NSS hub? Why not Sligo, Ballina/Castlebar, Letterkenny, etc etc? Subject to you substantiating your statement that medical opinion was divided, the situation seems to be that relevant experts said four centres was the way to go and we’ve decided to have six. But be clear that we have collectively decided that most people should travel, and we're satisfied so long as its someone else.

merlante wrote:

Each civil service job would generate around 3 more jobs downstream in the service industry, etc.

Even if you just reflect on this a little you should see what you are saying is just plain wrong. There is simply no way that the expenditure relating to one person generates three downstream jobs. Also, bear in mind that in Ireland we have an open economy so policies based on demand expansion just don’t work. This extract from an indo leaving cert exam brief illustrates that what I’m saying is not controversial - its elementary economics.

http://www.unison.ie/features/education/exambrief/pdfs/leaving/economics_o&h3.pdf
…Aggregate demand increases – however a huge percentage of this extra spending power leaks abroad in the form of higher demand for imports. This is because Ireland has a high marginal propensity to import. …

merlante wrote:

You really don't realise how sweet you have it in Dublin!

I think I’ll let the Western Development Commission open on that one.

Western Development Commission wrote:

http://www.lookwest.ie/lookwest/Home/WestLiving/tabid/105/Default.aspx#Less_Time_in_the_Car_–_More_Time_for_You_

 75% of people in the West spend 30 minutes or less getting to work
 Only 1 in 20 spend more than an hour
 Average commute time is about 20 minutes
 1 in 7 people in the Dublin area have to travel for over an hour to get to work each day
http://www.lookwest.ie/lookwest/Home/WestLiving/tabid/105/Default.aspx#_Your_Child’s_Education
Average pupil-teacher ratios in primary schools are considerably lower than in Dublin and surrounding counties e.g. an average of about 17 pupils per teacher in Mayo compared with 22 pupils in Kildare.

You really don’t realise how sweet we don’t have it in Dublin. Do I need to repeat everything I’ve said so far? Is the myth that Dublin gets some kind of special treatment so deeply ingrained that you can’t drop it even when its shown to be patently false?

merlante wrote:

Also I happen to believe that the Western rail corridor and indeed a Western motorway is vital to the national spatial strategy …..

Unfortunately, its not a matter of ‘belief’. No case exists for a Western Rail Corridor, as was demonstrated by the McCann report which was unable to find any benefit to the proposal and ending up by simply saying that it might not cost too much to reopen the line between Ennis and Athenry (although, unlike the assessment of the potential Navan and Cork suburban projects, they were unable to give any estimate of potential demand).
But, more to the point, those guys want to spend your money. If you want to hand the resources that might be used to upgrade WIT to build an unneeded train line in the West, then I think we might have discovered a slight problem in your world view.

merlante

I don't put much stock and store in individual surveys, tbh. I can only say that we seem to be doing a lot of research in 3rd level institutions in this country. Maybe if that doesn't register internationally, it's because we're just too small a country, or that the research is not well organised. In any case, these surveys are useless unless they specify how the source material is gathered.

Most of the medical experts that casted judgement on the radiotherapy campaign were from Galway, Cork & Dublin - you know, the crew of vested interests from the University hospitals. They decided that Waterford & Limerick didn't really need a unit. One of the 20 'experts' on that committee was from Waterford, Gordon Watson; he and others (from outside Waterford) gave a different 'expert' opinion, but they were outvoted by vested interests. You can be sure they were making good arguments too, and not parochial ones. Did you read about the comparison with Cornwall that was researched by the Cancer Care Alliance? It sounds like you just read the Irish Times view. And there was very little in the Irish Times about the other side of the argument. The most ridiculous thing the government did was have people fill out a survey where they rated the concerns people had about radiotherapy provision: apparently 'closeness to unit' didn't even get a good mention. Why? Because they only surveyed people in Cork and Dublin, where of course 'closeness to unit' wouldn't matter, since the unit was never far away in either case. Also, did the Irish Times mention the fact that the release of the report was held back for almost two years for some 'mysterious' reason? Remember there are 450,000 people in the south east, how much population do you need to get facilities in this country?

And yes obviously people in small towns and barren wastelands will have to travel for radiotherapy, but not, I hope, cities in regions with almost half a million people.

If you bring 200/300 jobs, with maybe 125 new people in to a town, then another bunch of people will need to get their hair cut, need a chemist or a doctor or a dentist, that will comparison and food shop in the area. I'm not going to argue too much about this because my figure of 3 jobs (iirc.) being generated by one 1 high quality civil service job, was not arrived at by me. I believe that this figure is frequently quoted in the media. But feel free to dismiss it like everything else I can't immediately and emphatically prove to your satisfaction.

I have lived for many years in Dublin and Waterford so I know what both are like. I don't have any report to back this up or anything, but the difference is quite simple. I'm not saying, per se, that Dublin is better funded than the south east, what I am saying is that Dublin is given infrastructure automatically, when it needs it. The south east, instead, must beg for everything. Then the south east is criticised for always begging and 'lobbying'. In Dublin Harney is giving the go ahead for the Matter hospital to be entirely rebuilt. There is no furore about that, I'm sure the Matter needs to be rebuilt. But do you have any idea how hard we would have to fight in Waterford to make the same thing happen, no matter how justified?

Another Irish Timesism, btw., is that they continually trot out a list of the 'States major hospitals' and mention Dublin hospitals: the Matter, St. James, etc. More occasionally they publish a list of the 'state's busiest hospitals', i.e. most in-patients in a given period. Typically Waterford Regional Hospital comes second on this list. Yet it is not a 'major hospital'. The mind boggles. But all of this serves to create the impression that Waterford and the south east are not significant parts of the country.

The fact that Dublin people have no need for campaigns or action groups, means that Dublin people don't know how good they have it. Waterford people, on the other hand, spend their lives fighting the government for the basics, or are simply forgotten. Why should we have to fight for everything. Why can't a government minister simply announce the upgrade of WIT, the way they simply announce the rebuilding of the Matter Hospital?

I think that if the time were taken to properly examine the Western Rail Corridor and motorway, it would be seen that in about 20/30 years, it would start to pay off. There is too little communication between the regional capitals at the moment, which is an obvious inefficiency. This inefficiency will, given time, begin to errode our economy. And no, I don't have a report to back this up, but then again I don't remember digging around for reports on any of the Dublin bridges built over the past few years either, and I don't recall hearing of any report on the new Cork School of Music either.