Why has Waterford City falling so behind the other 4 Cities Dublin Cork Limerick Galway ?

I have nothing against the development of Galway, its the model that should have happened in the south east. Reasonable to suggest that the favouritism towards Galway started from a legitimate "Save the West" desire and has continued since. The comment from 914 above about SETU Waterford waiting since 2009 for a new engineering building renders much other comment here superfluous. That's it in a nutshell. State investment and a political desire to support is the kernel of the problem.

The process of reclaiming the quays has started with the new bridge (200m Euro project) at the Clock Tower which contains, when completed , a small plaza aound the Clock. These are the necessary things to improve visual, transport access, urban permeability, civic presentation and appearance. Proper investment in UHW, SETU and FDI requirements drive the process as they underpin commercial confidence.

In Waterford's case a third level teacher training college De La Salle, which educated many GAA presidents and even Enda Kenny's father I believe, as national teachers, was closed in 1939. The campaign for a university in Waterford predated that event but later crystalised around it as in 1945 it was on the point of becoming a constituent college of the NUI when it was torpedoed by the president of UCC, Alfie O'Rahilly. There have been several iterations since then of a university action group in Waterford. The last ended in 2005 when uni status for WIT appeared certain.

I dont believe in government hatred of Waterford but their priorites always lie elsewhere. The 15 year wait for a new engineering building, or any new building at SETU Waterford as alluded to by 914 above is unequalled in Irish third level recent history, certainly in Galway or Limerick.

I agree, I don't believe it is hatred towards Waterford but it is more to do with personal political ambition which has a negative impact on Waterford.

I can use four examples since 2009 that might highlight this.

All reports below were independent reports commissioned by government.

2005, the Port report recommended WIT should be put forward to become a stand alone Uni. Ignored.

2012, (the name of the report escapes me now), again recommended Waterford for a stand alone Uni and if not and Ireland was to go the TU route then WIT should be granted TU status on its own as it was exceeding the TU criteria since 2009, again ignored

Both examples above were ignore as political representatives at the time wanted their own legacy, mainly Howlin wanted a campus in Wexford and Hogan wanted a campus in KK, Waterford going it alone would not see their plans come to fruition and WIT has been starved of funding since 2009.

Next up, boundary commission report, recommended Waterford expand its city boundary into parts of South Kilkenny. This was around the time of Enda Kenny stepping down as leader and Convey had his eye on leader of the party, due to the backlash in Kilkenny he chose to ignore the report for his own ambitions.

Finally the herity report into 24/7 cardiac care which concluded with not expanding 24/7 cardiac care in UHW. Then minister for health Simon Harris quote "there is no way government can go against an independent report"

From the above, three independent reports that supported progress in Waterford were all rejected for personal political gain. The fourth report which did not support Waterford was rubber stamped.

We can also go on with how the hegerty report was flawed and proved to be flawed. How Leo called consultants in UHW liars about the mortuary issue, and once investigated turned out all reports to be true and government were shamed into building a new mortuary.

The list is really endless. Politics in the South East is a mess and SETU will be a prime example.

Which every county gets a full ministerial positions then that county will thrive with funding towards their campus.

F##k them all. Resilience is the word. We're never giving up. We're never giving in.

The few times I've been in Waterford it strikes me as a very unremarkable place nothing special going for it but it's not a particularly awful place either just kind of your bog standard Irish/UK medium sized town.

First point is true. Other points are not.

The population in Waterford's hinterland is broadly comparable to Galway.

What does Gateway mean? It's a buzzword invented in the late 90's in preparation for the spatial strategy.

If communications links are important then all the regional strategic corridors focus on Waterford.

The second biggest river system and water resource is focused on Waterford.

The first spatial strategy which was ignored due to political interference identified Waterford as strategically important as did the second and third.

The reason for this has always been political interference from non strategic constituencies who want all of the counties to be treated equally despite it being absurd.

Galway's success is because of government investment and efforts by government through the IDA that prioritize it.

When it comes to natural advantages (water and distance to markets) and infrastructure such as roads,rail, and sanitation then Waterford wins hands down comapred to anywhere in the West.

The insistence by our neighboring counties to be treated the exact same despite not having the comparative advantages means that to placate them Waterford has to be under invested in to acheive local parity that doesn't exist.

When 15 years passes as 914 has inddicated above, without a planned engineering building (or indeeed any new building) for SETU being built, on a site that has been prepared since 2008 at a cost of 3m Euro, you might ask yourself if the chips are justified. I certainly feel aggrieved and so do many others. Should we stay quiet and not say we are being screwed? On its own, that single failure to invest in SETU answers the point raised by the OP.

There is something wrong and chips or no chips, its reasonable to ask why is state funding not available for a major project here when third level institutions all over the country have had massive investment in recent years? A lot of the extraneous points being dragged into this thread are simply irrelevant nonsense. This is not a beauty competition between towns and cities, remarkable or not, as some wit posted above, its a simple question of a fair allocation of state funding.

We make comparisons with LImerick and Galway not out of envy but to illustrate the need for equity.

It hasn't. The urban populations of the cities are in the same proportions as they always were since independence.

Tramore is basically a suburb of Waterford City

All the helpful posts here could proably be summarised: Waterford city should have equitable funding in third level education, in acute medical provision and in Foreign Direct Investment. After that, we'll take our chances.

Your county size/population makes no sense though. Say I live in North Mayo l then I am more than likely to go to Castlebar rather than Galway.

In a radius of 50km from Galway, Limerick and Waterford City the population is as follows

Galway 300k

Limerick 361k

Waterford 342k

The issue Waterford has in the above, within that 50k radius is Kilkenny and Wexford towns which is fine but political ambitions from said towns do all they can to ignore Waterford as the regional capital and do all they can to pull services from Waterford.

We have seen this with SETU, boundary extension and hospital. UHW is the only modal 4 hospital that is an understudy to a larger hospital as St Luke's in particular never wanted to side with UHW.

The lack of political and financial aid in education, health and FDI has been the result of Waterford's issues and lack of regional support for Waterford.

Thankfully we have a never say die attitude and despite the lack of support we see Waterford on the rise, which has been a result of a lot of local people doing all they can to drive the city.

Willie Donnelly former WIT president and co who founded TSSG (Walton Institute of Research) the only IoT in the county to have an institute of research. Many Waterford based tech companies have come from this.

Eamon Mceneaney has completely transformed Waterford tourist offering, I have lost count of the amount of museums that we have now.

The above is two small examples that have had a big impact on Waterford.

"Instead of comparing itself to other regional cities and complaining about the past, it should craft a vision of its future"

1. We have to compare ourselves to regional cities to ensure we get adequate funding on par with regional cities. Cork is gone to big now as there is only Limerick Galway and Waterford as regional cities now.

2. We are not complaining about the past, just highlight the OP's question about why has Waterford slipped behind.

3. Craft out own vision, we are! We were once a manufacturing city and that was our only draw. We now have a tourism offering, countless museums, a Viking triangle, a Greenway on our doorstep, mount Congreve only a few minutes from the city. We have created a vibrant tech and pharma scene, but all this can only go so far without government support/aid.

Also interesting in tourism talk in this thread some facts and figures from 2022 by failte Ireland.

Galway

Trips 984

Nights 2,703

Average length of stay 2.7

Spend €222 million

Waterford

Trips 422

Nights 1284

Average length of stay 3.0

Spend €106 million

Limerick

Trips 437

Nights 914

Average length of stay 2.1 nights

Spend €75 million

Kilkenny

Trips 365

Nights 729

Average length of stay 2.0

Spend €60 million

Granted the figures above are for the whole country but I think this shows how Waterford is working is working hard to develop its tourism market, almost double the money is spent by tourists in Waterford than it is in Kilkenny. That I'd imagine is a remarkable turned around considering we were once a manufacturing city.

I was surprised by this. SE region gets more domestic tourists than Dublin, mid west and West.

Thanks for proving my point for me...you don't know what you're talking about.

You don't seem or are pretending not to understand the difference between a literal definition and a word used informally or symbolically . In other words your just saying stuff!

The 'Gateway' term as it is used in planning is typically called a 'core city' or 'central place' in other words the socio-economic center of a region. In the South East that has been Waterford since the time of the Normans. It serves the same role as Limerick in the Mid-West and Galway in the West.

And even if you use the term literally as you are trying to for Galway then it is clear that Galway is not a Gateway city. Nobody needs to go to Galway to access any other region or county. If you travel to Sligo from Dublin, It has its own transport corridor from the capital. Same for Mayo and Donegal.

Your fixation with tourism is a classic straw man argument. You are only choosing it because it seems to support your case.But you can only do that if you over inflate the role of tourism which you are doing. Tourism is relatively tiny in today's economy. In the eighties it was at least twice what it is now as a source of employment in a workforce that is one third of what it is now. It is theoretically possible that if tourism vanished as an industry and no contagion effects occurred then in a year, the worst thing that would happen is a recession of 1 or 2 per cent. Now lets be clear...You are the one making a big deal out of tourism. My point is it is not a metric of the importance of a place.If it were so then as I said Blackpool would be the historic capital of the North West of England.

But here is a bitter pill for you. Tourism in Galway and Cork are the two biggest counties in Ireland. This inflates their 'apparent' success. The tourist numbers are in a bigger geographic area. When you consider this their star doesn't burn so bright especially with domestic tourism which is a better indicator because it more likely includes repeat visitors. When you compare geographic areas of the similar population and area then Waterford, Wexford and Kilkenny do just as well.

https://www.failteireland.ie/FailteIreland/media/WebsiteStructure/Documents/Publications/domestic-trips-and-revenue-by-county-2022.pdf?ext=.pdf

Your second fallacy is that you seem to not realize that you are throwing around all of these terms without fully understanding them. Hinterland being one of them. Galways 'hinterland' is Galway. Period. The county is so big that the idea that that the population of surrounding counties are 'drawn' to it is not a serious proposition. You seem to be confusing 'hinterland' with functional urban area. And in that case Galway pretty much serves itself and county Galway. Westport has one of the biggest FUA's in provincial Ireland. So does Killarney. This tells you two things. Cork and Galway are too far away for the people there to be 'drawn' to them for services.

Once again you seem to be saying a lot of stuff and buzzwords that you only half understand or that something is such a way because you 'think' its that way. The domestic tourism numbers also belie your claims about nightlife in Kilkenny compared to Waterford. Domestic visitor numbers and spend in Waterford are much higher. Wexford wins handsdown but you also have to consider that both of these counties have a border with Waterford and are in...ahem! Its hinterland.

Just a point to note that UHW is by far the largest hospital in the south east. It already offers tertiary services to the whole region and they are well used. Its a Model 4 unit while all others are Model 3 with the limited servcies that implies. Staff complement at UHW is now approx 3000 plus contract workers with 160 consultants (HSE stats). ED has same througput as CUH, ST Vincent's or Beaumont. Biggest orthopaedic unit in the country and its cardiology unit which FG ministers wanted to reduce in 2014 is now toe to toe with CUH on throughput. Recent personal interaction with UHW met people from all over the southern half of the country, including Cork, Wicklow and Limerick for treatment.

When you're explaining you're losing to some extent and your post is too long to reply in detail. Cork airport also has, as you say"its back to the region" .Shannon arguably should have been near Limerick Junction. Waterford deserves some parity of funding for acute medicine, thirdlevel education and FDI, with other cities. There are only five cities after all. National Plans either mean something or they dont.

To be honest I'm lost on the gateway chat.

I presumed that we were speaking about the national spatial strategy which defined the five cities of Ireland as gateways and other large towns as hubs.

There is a lot of talk of travelling from one place to another as a gateway, is this not the same as having to pass through Waterford for those travelling from rosslare to cork or Kerry?

Either way it's not important. The OP was questioning how Waterford has fallen behind, it is clear to see how and why that has happened as per plenty of posts here.

Lack of funding in education, health, FDI and regional politics.

Waterford is reimagining itself with a vibrant tech and pharma scene and we can see the benefits of that but all this hard work can only continue to progress if we receive similar funding and opportunities to Ireland's other cities.

I'm not sure how this seems to have descended into a debate of my d*** is better that your d*** in Waterford V Galway or the South East V the West.

As a Waterford man, Galway is a great city and county and as a Waterford man I would like to see is have the same craic of the whip with a stand alone University, independent model 4 hospital and the same level of FDI investment, what's wrong with that?

Look up the word conflation. Understand the meaning of that before you get carried away with the exuberance of your own verbosity.

IMHO our politics has gotten us to this situation.

Waterford's regional level offering is artificially being held back- acute healthcare, higher education, airport, M24, and the South Wexford-Ardkeen bridge. All of these should have been delivered in the past decade-plus, and we should have moved on to the next generation of priorities. These 'fair-share' investments would unlock IDA-FDI jobs, and support private investment (such as the original plan for the NQ). Politics is about luck (the full university was lost at cabinet by one vote in the dying days of Martin Cullen's time). So, we are now unlucky to be looking at 3 Cork SC boyos in cabinet pulling for Cork; before that, we were unlucky with the poverty-stricken pincer of Howlin-Hogan, unlucky that JD burnt out (although it is an open question if he would have been the milking cow). As a result, Waterford has not delivered for Wexford, Kilkenny, and South Tipp in the way Limerick delivers for Clare.

The hopeful part is that once these issues are unblocked, the place will roar back into line with national averages. Halting the brain drain with a full spectrum university offering will add 15-20k people to Waterford, young bright energetic people, this will lure in FDI (~ 11,325 missing, high paid, IDA-supported jobs across the region), airport/health/roads, etc all then fall into place. That has been the plan since at least 2000.

So, the agenda is very clear. It is now too late for the Government to spend in Waterford and affect the election cycle. The last three elections (2011/16/20) all threw out or reduced the votes of incumbents who did not deliver. I expect this trend to continue, with fewer FF, FG, Lab, and Greens next time out, but vote management might see seats held. Running more than one candidate for FF and FG is high risk, but if they are serious parties of Government they need at least two in each constituency to get more than 40 seats nationally! Those with hard oppositional positioning will do well (Verona Murphy, Matt Shanahan, Michael Lowry, John McGuinness, and Mattie McGrath), SF is now caught in the middle of the road having moved from hard opposition to serious people of government. With SF no longer the full-throated kick'em where it hurts opposition, expect Soc Dems, independents, and anyone else to be given a whirl.

They tell you that you will be equally treated then allow politics to have its way. NPF, a Plan..? In my ass.

Thank you for putting discrimination in context. Never give up. Never give in!

"Within walking distance of here there is 25000 students", the key difference