Waterford University discussion

I agree 100% that they’ve been fairly useless, Coffey tried at least, Deasy was worse than useless. The point I am trying to make is that we have even less of a chance of getting anything when we don’t have a FG TD. At least if Cummins was there he might argue our case in FG.

At a party level, FG seem to have just written off getting a seat in Waterford. They aren’t even trying to win us over or throw us some scraps. It’s very frustrating, I’d just like to see someone arguing our case…

West Waterford requires less delivery of projects services so it’s a better road for FG to take. Rural farmers tend to vote FG also. Even if Cummins gets elected he is an eastern Waterford representative voted in by the western part of the county. Weird!

Just in time for th election!

https://www.wlrfm.com/news/announcement-on-major-development-at-setu-imminent-368511?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2BuJ8VVJ8LEWq5NVhKH57NXNE4_Il5crh3vP26SW0j5U_lvZ2-EIQMLAs_aem_cn-uxW0t_tU-9dgbWbDiSg

I'm afraid we are all cynics at this stage.

In April, WLR reported that a tender from the last remaining consortium in the PPP Bundle 2 process for the SETU Cork Road Campus had been received and was being evaluated by the Department of Further and Higher Education, in collaboration with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.

The planning permission expires next month! You actually couldn’t make it up!

If you Joined as a 1st year student in WIT in September 2021 (SETU was established in 2022), you are now entering your final year (4th year for honours) and you literally have seen no change, hard to fathom.

I wonder what advantage/benefit/improvements students have seen in that time other than have the word University on their parchment.

The last few generations of WIT leadership spoke out and were personally and professionally destroyed for it. The new crop know their history and so are unlikely to follow the same failed pathway. SETU management have a responsibility to work with what they have, in the interest of current students. In reality it is stakeholders (students, employers, families, teachers and ordinary SETU staff) who can and need to speak out, and focus their ire on DFERIS and Government.

Now we need all the regional representatives to get out to Waterford airport and do the same and stop this delay madness from the government!

Can anyone explain how the initial newspaper reports I've found seemed to announce 3 new vet colleges but this subsequently morphed into a contest between the 3?

Plenty of building projects took place there over the past 10 years while WIT was starved of investment.

The also just logged an application for another 6k square foot building

https://www.carlowlive.ie/news/around-carlow/1591554/carlow-university-applies-for-planning-permission-for-large-extension-to-the-campus.html

This post covers it all!!!

It was no secret they were trying to shift the balance of power of 3rd level education in the South East with Hogan and Howlin the driving force behind it.

WIT met TU criteria on its own in 2014!

The fact not one teaching building has been delivered in Waterford in over 20 years says it all.

When they converted the Dome bar to offices recently they quote from someone in college in the papers was "we have to use all the space that we have available to us as we are bursting at the seems"

Had government invested in an already successful WIT, they would have had no chance to allow it apply for NUI status or at least allow it become a TU on its own still giving it a chance of becoming a NUI.

What was done to WIT was absolutely awful, the site of the new engineering building sums the whole thing up. Rusted construction fences there since 2008!

I've questioned this myself. As I pointed out in this thread before to have a Vet College with international accreditation you need access to a tertiary veterinary hospital, there was no way three such hospitals were going to be built. It has been assumed for some time that UL were getting the Vet programme. A vet nursing programme might be the secondary prize for the other two institutions.

I had the same thought were I see a one for everybody in the audience, UL getting the full vet school and both TUs getting some level of Vet Course

I'd actually be shocked if they don't give something to both TUs and UL.

Whether the TUs get anything that is substantial is another question but it's hard to not see them get something.

Failure to deliver this prior to an election would spell disaster for them, a leader of FG who railroad in the TU process constantly saying how transformational it will be and not granted something at the first hurdle would be suicide.

I expect UL to get a full vet school, the TUs some watered down version which will be sold as a great triumph would be my guess.

Or all along they were planning on opening 3 vet schools both UL and TUs get it and again it will be sold as political success and this notion of the three fighting it out was all made up to add to the drama and success of it all.