infrastructure in Waterford

puppetmaster

charlemont wrote: »

Waterford doesn't have the population for it, And its not going to grow anytime soon either.

Its not just Waterford though, Doesnt the southeast region have circa population of 250,000. Waterford Airport is more convienient from most of waterford, Wexford , Kilkenny, South tipp and south Carlow. If the prices were right i reckon Waterford airport. allbeit with an extended runway would be quiet successfull. I would much rather travel from there. than the hassle of driving to Cork or Dublin. Cork county has somewhere round half a million inhabitants. and CRK airport has traffic Of 2.5mill psg's.
Over 1 million of these travel to the UK. Waterford can manage over 100k pax with only one turbo prop operating out of it with a limited ability to give large scale discounts. I think it might be short sighted to think that it cant do better than that.

@ master and commander, Whats up your hole man? WIT is full of rif raf ar$e holes, The ariport should be shut cause its sh!t and deserted, how the hell can ryanair make a go of it when they cant land a bloddy plane there!!!, Tramore should be Levelled, and Everything is wrong. If you have nothing positive to say about anything in Waterford why bother posting in the forum? The OP is at least throwing out some ideas that he thinks will work. If you cant give any better ones or valid researched points rather than bugrudging BullSh!t. Dont bother at all....

tankbarry

When waterford had the summer flights to malaga and portugal and amsterdam there was big numbers on them. Why people from the southeast dont use Waterford Airport is because the aircraft cant land because the runway isnt big enough. People would use Waterford Airport if the flights were there.

charlemont

puppetmaster wrote: »

Its not just Waterford though, Doesnt the southeast region have circa population of 250,000. Waterford Airport is more convienient from most of waterford, Wexford , Kilkenny, South tipp and south Carlow. If the prices were right i reckon Waterford airport. allbeit with an extended runway would be quiet successfull. I would much rather travel from there. than the hassle of driving to Cork or Dublin. Cork county has somewhere round half a million inhabitants. and CRK airport has traffic Of 2.5mill psg's.
Over 1 million of these travel to the UK. Waterford can manage over 100k pax with only one turbo prop operating out of it with a limited ability to give large scale discounts. I think it might be short sighted to think that it cant do better than that.

@ master and commander, Whats up your hole man? WIT is full of rif raf ar$e holes, The ariport should be shut cause its sh!t and deserted, how the hell can ryanair make a go of it when they cant land a bloddy plane there!!!, Tramore should be Levelled, and Everything is wrong. If you have nothing positive to say about anything in Waterford why bother posting in the forum? The OP is at least throwing out some ideas that he thinks will work. If you cant give any better ones or valid researched points rather than bugrudging BullSh!t. Dont bother at all....

I agree, Waterford should have been the airport for south Leinster and east Munster. Its funny as the west has an airport in every county.

merlante

coolperson05 wrote: »

I really sit on the fence. I'm a graduate of WIT and am now studying in TCD and the difference is shocking!
The staff were top class at WIT, but the management and admin was devastating. I can't speak for other Universities, but WIT is way behind the ones I investigated.

That's pretty bizarre that you put the difference between WIT and TCD down to the admin staff...

In any case, there is a gulf between WIT and TCD, but then there is a gulf between the other Irish universities and TCD as well. You can't compare WIT with the best university in Ireland. You could compare it to the rank and file though: UL, NUIM, DCU and NUIG. Sure, it's still a bit behind, but then it is an IoT, and it will remain that bit behind for as long as it takes to re-designate it. How could it be otherwise?

coolperson05 wrote: »

Saying that, WIT deserves to stand above other institutes in the country. (IMO alot of them shouldn't be there in the first place...). I dunno about the 'tech. university' title but stuff needs to change in WIT before it gets upgraded to everything. It's top of the IT sector and should market itself as such, concentrate on particular areas (business/I.T./nursing). It will quickly become bottom of the University sector if it's just a new sign on the Cork Rd.

Being "bottom of the university sector" would be fantastic, actually. You never hear the newer universities like DCU, UL or NUIM being too worried about being at the bottom. Why? Because the bottom is considered reasonably decent.

And by the way, it is simply unfair to demand anything more of WIT for as long as it remains an IoT. It has already gone far beyond it's original remit and cannot be expected to progress any further in the IoT straightjacket. The constant demand for improvements in order for WIT to "deserve" university status is a joke: most of our universities were built from scratch as universities!

IoTs are big bundles of legal contracts between people and the state, housed in bricks and mortar, they don't "deserve" anything. It's countries, regions, counties and cities that deserve, or warrant, infrastructure, which should be provided on the basis of demographic need, not on the basis on whatever happens to be on a site at a particular point in time.

NUIG opened in 1849 as Queen's College, Galway with 37 professors and 91 students. WIT has a 1,000 staff and 6,000 students and we're having arguments about whether "it's there" yet.

coolperson05 wrote: »

And at the moment, that's all they can do. Ireland is broke! They're cutting peoples welfare and closing hospital beds. There's good universities in Ireland already and grants to get you there, the Government have NO money to upgrade IT's. It would cause outrage: 'Waterford get a Uni but pensioners are cut their fuel allowance'....
It's a great idea, and Waterford has been clearly neglected, but at the moment it can't be done properly so it shouldn't be done at all...Waterford will fall more into mockery with a University 'light' and an airport 'light' etc...

Ah jaysus, there was never any money for things governments didn't want to do. Re-designate, make a 10 year plan, modest starts, like Galway in 1849, or more comparably, like certain of the ex-polytechnics in the UK, some of whom are rated very highly today. There is never good time to create institutions, but the UK still managed to create the NHS and we built Ardnacrusha, all in bad times. And how much, realistically, would an upgrade of WIT cost anyway? Not a whole lot I'd say.

ted1

Close of fishing in Irish waters for five years. Introduce a licencee system saying all fish has to go through an Irish port.

This will create plenty of jobs.

Finnbar01

dayshah wrote: »

Specifically which directives do you think we should ignore, and you think everyone else ignores? Because, without showing any examples whatsoever, you just sound like someone having a whinge,

We should ignore any directive that has a negative effect on the economy of this country.

.

Nolanger

Why isn't Waterford used more for international movie locations? It's got some of the best weather and scenery in the country. Look at what Cork are up to: http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&aid=73&rid=4283663&tpl=archnews&only=1

puppetmaster

Nolanger wrote: »

Why isn't Waterford used more for international movie locations? It's got some of the best weather and scenery in the country. Look at what Cork are up to: http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&aid=73&rid=4283663&tpl=archnews&only=1

Not a bad idea to push to throw light on Waterford. Wouldnt do much for employment, or would it? Wexford has its fair share of film work going on down there. Not to mention the north with Game of thrones, Camelot and a good few others being filmed up there. Maybe there is some encouragement happening up there apart from scenery?

dayshah

Finnbar01 wrote: »

We should ignore any directive that has a negative effect on the economy of this country.

.

Yep, just the sort of bullsh!t answer I expected. Its right up there with 'the government should do something'.

Master and commander

merlante wrote: »

If WIT were to be re-designated WUT tomorrow and a 10 year plan were to be put in place to get the college well up into the university pack, things would begin to improve immediately. WUT would be pushed forward as a tier 1 institution by our government, who in backing it as such, would improve the reputation of the college overnight. This little boost in renaming would have to be eventually backed up with funding and actions, of course, but right away, student numbers would rise. This would lead to a rise in standards, soon more and better qualified staff, more research funding and therefore more and better PhDs.

And all this cannot be done under the name WIT can it not? Does changing the I for a U make such a difference, cos thats all it is in effect. Equivalent to when they canged it from an RTC to WIT. Now tell me why all these improvements you mention could not be argued for without any change in the name??

AIRPORT. No-one is there to use any extended runway with 737 capacity. Cork and Dublin are far closer and better. The one elephant in the room is this: Who is going to pay for it all eh?? not the government thats for sure. Could it be sold so a private operator then? i doubt anyone would be interested. population density in the region is far too low and cork is only a stones throw away.

daenerysstormborn3

I say leave WIT the way it is. Rebranding would cost too much and there's enough money thrown at certain offices out there as it is (€60,000 on artwork anyone?).

What happened to sky opening a call centre here? And the jobs Citi were to create?

M&S and Iceland have both approached the relevant council in Waterford and been rejected. Are they not interested in creating jobs?

dayshah

pixiebean22 wrote: »

M&S and Iceland have both approached the relevant council in Waterford and been rejected. Are they not interested in creating jobs?

An M&S would be nice, but its not exactly game changing infrastructure.

I would like WIT gets some recognition for being ahead of all the other ITs, except DIT which is very good. Also, I think it would be good to have a rail link directly from the port to the industrial estate.

merlante

Master and commander wrote: »

And all this cannot be done under the name WIT can it not? Does changing the I for a U make such a difference, cos thats all it is in effect. Equivalent to when they canged it from an RTC to WIT. Now tell me why all these improvements you mention could not be argued for without any change in the name??

Name? You think this is all about a name?

This is about a change from the mission, rights and obligations in the institutes of technology act to the mission, rights and obligations in some new WUT act. You'd have more autonomy, better governance, more fiscal flexibility, streamlined processes for starting degrees, no obligation to go through HETAC and other semi-state middlemen, less boards to answer to, the full permission and encouragement to pursue all levels of research. And yes, additional funding would have to be forthcoming to allow WUT to fulfill duties and offer services that it either isn't fulfilling now, or is fulfilling by skimming out of some other budget and robbing peter to pay paul. There would also be an expectation of some baseline research funding rather than having to fight for every penny from some funding agency somewhere (or rob a bank) to make sure full time researchers stay in a job.

It's like if you started life as a primary school and then decided one day that you want to hire some professor and start offering degrees. How do you think the school board would react? Where would the cash come from for the professor? Could you get away with raiding the fund for teacher's salaries? How do you think the teachers would react? Might they send a few letters to the department of education deploring your actions? How are you going to convince the various bodies to accredit your degrees? And so on, and on. Not quite as ridiculous going from an IoT to a university but you get the picture. And believe it or not, additional rights and privileges probably were gained from the move from RTC to IoT status.

All that said, the symbolic act of redesignation is not to be sniffed at in and of itself -- and it's a lot more than a name change. It's all the more important, politically, to be one of a small number of institutes upgraded, but that's another matter.

merlante

pixiebean22 wrote: »

I say leave WIT the way it is. Rebranding would cost too much and there's enough money thrown at certain offices out there as it is (€60,000 on artwork anyone?).

What happened to sky opening a call centre here? And the jobs Citi were to create?

M&S and Iceland have both approached the relevant council in Waterford and been rejected. Are they not interested in creating jobs?

You could keep the name but would it not be a good idea if you get the college upgraded to differentiate yourself from the other IoTs? Or do you think the whole thing is just a name change as well? FFS. A thousand posts on a thousand threads and still people think this.

daenerysstormborn3

merlante wrote: »

You could keep the name but would it not be a good idea if you get the college upgraded to differentiate yourself from the other IoTs? Or do you think the whole thing is just a name change as well? FFS. A thousand posts on a thousand threads and still people think this.

Eh chill out, that's not what I said at all.

sparkling sea

tankbarry wrote: »

When waterford had the summer flights to malaga and portugal and amsterdam there was big numbers on them. Why people from the southeast dont use Waterford Airport is because the aircraft cant land because the runway isnt big enough. People would use Waterford Airport if the flights were there.

The flights were there as you rightly point out, yet they were cancelled!

Well the numbers werent big enough to make it a profitable to run unfortunately for us, for the past couple of years.

I cant comment on the Faro flight but when the flights were available the Malaga flight the 1st week in July wasn't evn 50% full. Further Amsterdam had about 80% passengers from Galway with 20% getting on and off at Waterford Airport flying the 2nd last week in August.

If there was a profit to be made the the planes equipped to fly on the runaway thats there would be made available. It wasn't profitable so Aer Arann cancelled.

Finnbar01

dayshah wrote: »

Yep, just the sort of bullsh!t answer I expected. Its right up there with 'the government should do something'.

Gee, you really have a hard time understanding plain english.

You're the type of person that thinks we can rule and regulate our lives away. Incidentally, I wouldn't be surprised if 'the government should do something' mantra is actually part of your vocabulary.

dayshah

Finnbar01 wrote: »

Gee, you really have a hard time understanding plain english.

You're the type of person that thinks we can rule and regulate our lives away. Incidentally, I wouldn't be surprised if 'the government should do something' mantra is actually part of your vocabulary.

We need more than vacuous slogans to get out of the recession. 'The government should deregulate' without referring to a single specific regulation which harms the economy is just such a vacuous slogan.

Ireland has one of the most deregulated economies, and least amount of red tape, in Europe.

sparkling sea

merlante wrote: »

Those saying that WIT is nowhere near university standard have very rose tinted views of what Irish universities are. I've studied and worked in a number of them and the difference is not huge by any means. Both kinds of institutes tend to be run "worse that you'd think". In the areas WIT is strong in, it is certainly at the so-called university standard.

People have to remember that the university and institute of technology labels only have legal existence in Irish law. In other countries the terms either mean something else or are not legally and officially defined. On a European or world-wide basis, 'university' doesn't really mean anything, particularly as the equivalent of IoTs in the German speaking world (Fachhochschulen), for example, actually translate their institutes as 'universities of technology' in English, because that's what they think makes sense in English.

The only thing that matters outside this parochial little island of ours is reputation, accreditation, proven research ability, teaching quality, and generally speaking, what ends up in a league tables. WIT has made great strides in some of these areas and lags in others. Unfortunately for WIT, the environment it is operating in, government, media, society, higher education sector, is not particularly well disposed towards it. (Which can effect rankings, for example, in many subtle ways.)

One of the biggest problems WIT faces that could be solved immediately is the uncertainty over its future. If WIT were to be re-designated WUT tomorrow and a 10 year plan were to be put in place to get the college well up into the university pack, things would begin to improve immediately. WUT would be pushed forward as a tier 1 institution by our government, who in backing it as such, would improve the reputation of the college overnight. This little boost in renaming would have to be eventually backed up with funding and actions, of course, but right away, student numbers would rise. This would lead to a rise in standards, soon more and better qualified staff, more research funding and therefore more and better PhDs. The single most important thing a university needs after good staff is good students. Students actually determine the standard that the college can operate at, because you have to target courses to the mean ability of students, to a large degree at least. (Notice how failure rates in top universities and failed 3rd rate colleges are not dissimilar.)

An immediate upgrade would have effects in course take-up as soon as the next academic year, as the seal of approval from the government instills confidence in Mammies and Daddies and students everywhere that little Johnny's degree will be as good from WUT as anywhere. Yes, those degrees are probably as good anyway, but perception is a large part of it.

I would think that the level of dedication of the students has a massive efffect on the actual quality of any course or degree, that was my experience. Although some lecturers are excellent, some should be sacked immediately due to either their disinterest in lecturing, the fact that they don't possess the ability to get information across or they dont have the skills to deal with people, this having a huge impact on their students. You can lobby to change the name until you're blue in the face but unless the students graduating have the actual knowledge their parchements states they have the courses that are useless will remain so and vice versa.

For what its worth I think the lecturers should have to take a a teacher training course and personality assessment.

Master and commander

streamlined processes for starting degrees, no obligation to go through HETAC and other semi-state middlemen,

its been the best part of ten years since WIT had to go through HETAC for its awards. They award their own degrees now, they are not HETAC.

Perhaps the money spent on the carriganore pitches would have been better spent on the items you mentioned above. The carriganore sports complex has been the biggest squander of money in wits history, bigger than Byrnes office art fiasco. There seems to be a soccer, rugby and GAA pitch for every day of the week up there. and i rarely see anyone using any one of them, let alone using multiple pitches at once, FFS how many do you need. What a waste! I suppose thats what you get when you allow GAA heads and other sports fanatics into positions of power. Waterford has loads of pitches already, waterford crystal, walsh park, RSC - its only a very small city, I mean how many do you need ffs.

merlante

Master and commander wrote: »

its been the best part of ten years since WIT had to go through HETAC for its awards. They award their own degrees now, they are not HETAC.

HETAC may have a lot less involvement with the mundane business of awarding degrees in WIT but it is the body that all IoTs are beholden to for the following purposes:

(From the HETAC website)

HETAC (the Higher Education and Training Awards Council) was established on 11 June 2001, under the Qualifications (Education and Training) Act 1999. It is the successor to the National Council for Educational Awards (NCEA) and is the qualifications awarding body for third-level education and training institutions outside the university sector. It exists to benefit learners and potential learners by:

- Setting standards, accrediting programmes and awarding qualifications at all levels of higher education and training;
- Providing assurance to the public that programmes of higher education and training are above an acceptable threshold level of quality and that objective quality assurance processes are in place to meet the expectations of Irish Society and the International Community;
- Delivering a quality improvement service to registered educational providers so as to contribute to raising standards to increasingly higher levels.

I seem to remember complaints from WIT that it took so long to get their Architecture degree signed off (years) that UL actually stole a march on them and were able to begin the same year.

Master and commander wrote: »

Perhaps the money spent on the carriganore pitches would have been better spent on the items you mentioned above. The carriganore sports complex has been the biggest squander of money in wits history, bigger than Byrnes office art fiasco. There seems to be a soccer, rugby and GAA pitch for every day of the week up there. and i rarely see anyone using any one of them, let alone using multiple pitches at once, FFS how many do you need. What a waste! I suppose thats what you get when you allow GAA heads and other sports fanatics into positions of power. Waterford has loads of pitches already, waterford crystal, walsh park, RSC - its only a very small city, I mean how many do you need ffs.

All righty then. Yes, perhaps they could have used that money to buy signage and bribe the cabinet, the Dail, the senate and the president (since bribing legislators is probably more or less unconstitutional) into upgrading WIT and we'd have a university right now.

savic04

The problem with Waterford airport is that airlines need to base aircrafts at an airport.
And Waterford simply doesnt have the numbers to faciiate several flights per day.

Aer Lingus has 2 maybe 3 aircrafts in Cork serving, Lanz, Las palmas, Faro, Malaga, Heathrow, Birmingham, Manchester, Tenerife.. more or less on a daily basis, the sun destinations alter every other day..

One plane in Waterford airport would need to be in the air 85% of the day, we simply dont have numbers to facilitate a profitable aircraft being based there.

In saying that, the runway should be extended, during the ice/snow last year, Waterford airport was the ONLY airport in Ireland that was able to take aircrafts during one of the early morning snow storms... but yet the runway wasn't big enough! Maybe if the runway was big enough, it might get an airline to see how viable leaving an aircraft there.

In saying that, the first thing a company look for when re-locting is external costs... Transport costs to/from Cork or Dublin airport is a definate factor in some companies locating elsewhere.. even Knock has a better airport than us!

tankbarry

Maybe if the runway was big enough, it might get an airline to see how viable leaving an aircraft there.

waterford would get some summer flights and extra flights during the weekdays if they had a bigger runway. waterford could offer cheaper landing fees because they are not controlled by the DAA. Things can happen there it is just the runway that is needed. It would take time to happen but COULD happen and would benefit the whole South East not just Waterford

jonnyfingers

It's times like this that Waterford Airport is extremely usefull. I need to get home from London quickly for a funeral and have a flight booked from Southend for tomorrow morning.

If Waterford Airport wasn't there I'd face the hassle of having to get from Dublin or Cork down to Waterford. I don't mind paying the extra money for the convenience of having an airport on the doorstep.

AdMMM

[edit]Probably shouldn't be posting this[/edit]

Master and commander

jonnyfingers wrote: »

If Waterford Airport wasn't there I'd face the hassle of having to get from Dublin or Cork down to Waterford. I don't mind paying the extra money for the convenience of having an airport on the doorstep.

Oh yes! maybe i can petition the gummint to built an airport in the field at the back of my house just to make it handy for me to use it when i going some place. I am blue in the face from saying it but here i go: A town the size of waterford with its catchment does not justify expanding the airport to that level. The demand to make it viable is not there.
Make no mistake about it, Ryanair and the likes would snap it up if they thought it would be profitable and initiate their own expansion program. To date they have no interest thus it is not viable and losing money iirc. It makes beeter financial sense to close that airport and give the land over to afforrestation. The same can be said for airports like Galway, Knock and Farranfore. The are not financially viable and are only kept open by artificial support from the gummint.

Master and commander

tankbarry wrote: »

waterford would get some summer flights and extra flights during the weekdays if they had a bigger runway. waterford could offer cheaper landing fees because they are not controlled by the DAA. Things can happen there it is just the runway that is needed. It would take time to happen but COULD happen and would benefit the whole South East not just Waterford

It would only be of any benefit to Waterford county kilkenny and wexford. Cork is easier to get to from Tipperary and West waterford. Dublin is better for those in north wexford and carlow regions.

It would benefit the public finances better if it was just wound-up or privatised as it is currently a burden on the exchequer due to the subsidies it recieves. Same can be said for companies like CIE and alot of the health services. They don't make financial sense by any stretch of the imagination.

jonnyfingers

If you don't expand the airport it will never become anything. Sometimes it takes significant expansion to get things going. A bigger airport could encourage more businesses to set up in Waterford. More airlines could come in due to increased demand for European travel and even freight transport. More flights would mean more potential customers. More customers could end up getting taxis, staying in hotels, etc. improving the local economy.

I'm not saying any of this would happen but sometimes you have to think big. Saying that the airport shouldn't be expanded and then doing nothing will benefit Waterford in no way, even if it is the right decision. Waterford is declining quickly, decisions have to be made. Expanding the airport could be one of them.

The way I see it:

Do nothing to the airport = nothing happens
Expand the airport = something might happen

A chance of something is better that a certainty of nothing in my opinion.

Master and commander

A bigger airport could encourage more businesses to set up in Waterford. More airlines could come in due to increased demand for European travel and even freight transport. More flights would mean more potential customers. More customers could end up getting taxis, staying in hotels, etc. improving the local economy.

You could work for CIE - i mean it is that kind of wishful thinking that brought about the sort of mindless waste that was the western rail corridor. All these fancy ideas and talk of regenerating the whole area. It was a disaster - loses money wholesale, numbers far below targets and the waterford/limerick leg on the brink of dismantlement and closure. The northern sections abandoned.

mike65

Developing the airport isn't even a case of thinking big, just a moderate investment to be honest in the scheme of things. If the airport isn't lengthened then those that have a use for rapid movement of goods by air will never bother setting up shop here, that's a certainty.

Here's an alarming stat - Of 193 IDA-organised visits by prospective foreign direct investors in the first five months of this year, just six looked at the southeast region.