Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The North Quays project in Waterford is finally happening. It was originally conceived in the 1990s when the then Minister, Martin Cullen, launched a design competition for the north wharf. It is marvellous to see the contractor finally appointed and hard hats and white vans arriving to the site.

It took a massive and sustained effort to bring this project to fruition. That effort included predecessors of the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, namely, the former Minister, Martin Cullen, and former Minister of State, Paudie Coffey, as well as the steadfast stewardship of Waterford City and County Council under Mr. Michael Walsh. I also acknowledge the Minister and his Department's front-bench engagement with me on the project.

The Minister has cut the Gordian knot and made it happen. By his action, he has gone some way to restoring the hope of Waterford for better times ahead. I also look forward to the opening of the new Irish wake museum in the heart of Waterford's Viking Triangle. I again acknowledge the support of the Minister's Department to Waterford and to me in the delivery of this further outstanding historical project to the city's impressive tourism offering.

That said, the rose is not without its thorns. The Minister's Department has let Waterford down with regard to student accommodation. The national student accommodation strategy, which began in 2016 and will run for another two years, is a shared policy between the Minister's Department and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. Remarkably, despite all the big talk about expanding Waterford's university - big all-action talk that was in the last three programmes for Government - the Minister's plan provides for no additional student accommodation in Waterford; not a single bed more than the 2,500 or so units that have been in the city now for 20 years, many of which were developed by the old Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT, all the while providing for expansion of student accommodation in every other university city in Ireland, which the Minister's Department is doing.

I gather this plan is the reason why the Waterford Crystal site has not been acquired to date despite the Taoiseach stating in this House that it was the Government's intention to acquire that site more than two years ago. I am also given to understand it is why the LDA and other streams of public funding cannot be accessed to support student accommodation being developed in Waterford. Will the Minister build on the momentum of the north quays and commit to revising the national student accommodation strategy to put ambitious targets in place for Waterford? Without ending this discrimination, it appears we cannot unlock and unleash the significant development potential of our region.

See this speech in context