Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is now 11 years since Fine Gael promised Waterford a national university. It also promised this to the south east in 2011. Since that time no investment has been made on the campus in Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT, despite the fact that the Government and the Higher Education Authority, HEA, blocked any developments and this ended up at the Committee for Public Accounts as well. The Minister told us that the technological university was the only show in town for many years and that it would be enough to meet the needs of our region and our young to set them up for professional achievement. I have had the benefit of the Minister’s formal answer, which I reviewed earlier. Basically what he is announcing is a reannouncement of an engineering building in 2007. What is worse is that in the climate we are currently in we have no confidence that it is going to be built under a PPP mechanism. There is no exceptionalism mentioned anywhere in the Minister’s answer for the fact that SETU will be the only third level educational stream in the south east, unlike every other region in the country.

I ask the Minister why the people of the south east should believe that this Government has any aspirations or desire to address the needs of higher education. I have asked the Minister a number of times about capital funding and the quantum and all he has said to me is there is a strong commitment and a breadth of ambition. That is all I have heard.

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