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I’M THE LABOUR TD for Waterford and, along with health, the issue of employment is the one I’m asked about most often – and rightly so.
It’s no secret that Waterford and the South East has its difficulties with a high unemployment rate. Almost one in five people are without a job; that’s significantly higher than the national average.
The tide may be turning, however.
Just this week we had an announcement from Sanofi, a major multinational drugs company, that it will invest €44m euro at its Waterford Genzyme base. It will become the main plant for the production of ‘Lantus’ , a leading brand of insulin that will be supplied worldwide. It’s a vote of confidence which could create up to one hundred jobs in the process.
On Wednesday, Minister Noonan published the Finance Bill and, buried in this large document, was news of a pilot scheme which could be another step helping to get the buzz back into the city centre.
In case you didn’t know : Waterford is the oldest city in Ireland.
It’s where the Vikings first landed, and where Strongbow and Aoife got married. In recent times it has taken big hits on the jobs front, and the businesses in the city centre have suffered as the doughnut effect kicks in with many large shops moving to the outskirts.
The ‘Living Cities’ scheme is all about urban regeneration and the aim is to revitalise retail in Waterford City – and Limerick – through a series of tax incentives.
There are two strands – one focusing on incentivising local businesses to refit and upgrade their premises, the other based on encouraging people to live in historic buildings. Waterford has an abundance of beautiful period properties so it will be a good test location.
As regards the regeneration of the retail heartland; the focus will be on assisting and encouraging local business. This is NOT a back door return to the old investor schemes, where developers came in, bought property, claimed the reliefs then left the properties lying empty.
Retailers will be entitled to relief on works undertaken to upgrade or refit their shops.
Accelerated Capital Allowances, a type of relief which has been in place for quite some time, will be available to retailers to allow them to claim for refitting works etc over a period of seven years at a rate of 15 per cent for the first 6 years and 10 per cent for the final year.
It’s a small step, but I think it’s positive in the sense that it shows that this Government recognises that there are serious problems in Waterford and any measures or schemes that propose to tackle that are very welcome indeed.
We have a long way to go in terms of getting our fair share of investment in Waterford, but there are signs. A Pilot Scheme, a major investment from an international company. Site visits from the IDA have increased dramatically, and it has just invested heavily in a modern ‘smart building’ facility that will be another piece of the jigsaw. A local company that started up just over a year ago, Eishtec, now employs 400 people in Waterford, and 250 elsewhere in the South East.
Minister Bruton’s department has a dedicated Action Plan for the South East, with a focus on jobs for Waterford. A quick look at jobs.ie today shows 80 positions available in Waterford alone, not to mention neighbouring counties in the south east.
Behind the scenes, meetings are being had and work is underway with companies, and groups like the IDA being lobbied hard, and lobbying hard.
It won’t happen overnight. There’s a long way to go. But there are signs of positivity for places like Waterford, and lots happening behind closed doors that can’t always be reported in media.
So will this new ‘Living Cities’ pilot scheme make a difference ?
Maybe so.
It’s another piece in the slow jigsaw, and is a signal that Waterford’s issues are being recognised and that can only be a good thing.
Ciara Conway is a Labour TD for Waterford, and the Vice Chairperson of the Oireachtas Committee on Health,Children and Youth Affairs.
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I’ve an idea. Lower the rates that businesses pay. Give city centres what they have been pleading for rather some half baked scheme complete with a grinning politician.
Totally agree re: rents and rates. I believe they have a good system in France that encourages diversity amongst retailers in towns as opposed to our model of squeeze every penny out of whoever can afford to pay. So in France you have your butcher paying less rates than your jeweller as the model of business differs greatly in terms of earning potential.
When did the journal become a platform for politicians?
Is Ciara Conway for real trying to take credit for this? This initiative while very worthy is a move to Michael Noonan to encourage development of the beautiful Georgian buildings in such bad condition in Limerick city. Waterford was thrown in as an afterthought to distract from that fact. There isn’t a hope in hell of Conway getting re-elected & If Hogan & Reilly go ahead with their plans to destroy the South-East’s health services Deasy & Coffey can start sending out their CV’s too. This government & Hogan in particular are blatantly trying to destroy the country’s oldest city.
Ciara. While you are sharing your opinions. What is your defence of O’Reilly’s attempt to downgrade WRH? Why hasn’t WIT been upgraded as promised pre-election? What are you & Labour doing about the fact that Waterford is an unemployment blackspot? Why aren’t Galway & Cork city & co co’s amalgamated like Waterford? Not to mention all the other councils if the govt are really interested in reform?
this website is for steohen donnelly only! how dare you!
If this government is seriously committed to reducing unemployment then they should abolish or at least alter the JobBridge scheme. In Waterford city alone, there’s 44 positions currently advertised and 15 in the county.
I understand the aim of the scheme but I think interns should be paid the minimum wage at least. There’s quite a few positions which really should not be internships and these are in fact displacing employment. Before JobBridge, retailers, companies etc would have to hire someone for at least the minimum wage but now they can avail of interns at a minimal price. In fact, the State pay’s the intern’s social welfare allowance and the weekly 50e payment so the employers do not contribute any money towards the intern’s pay.
This is causing job displacement and in effect means that a majority of entry-level positions are advertised as JobBridge internships.
As usual, business wins to the expense of the rest of us. Well said.
What, you mean a jobbridge placement in a fast food outlet or stocking shelfs doesn’t teach you great skills????
I’m from Waterford and wanted to do a graphic design internship in Waterford after I finished the graphic design course there. Was told I wasn’t allowed to do it because I wasn’t on social welfare (having just finished college). I had to move to Dublin to get a job.
@Eoin, I don’t think they should get rid of it but the rules definitely need to be changed. My partner recently completely 2 courses in book keeping & accounting & wanted to start an internship with a company so she could gain practical experience. One company she applied to returned an email stating she was unsuccessful as they were looking for someone with a minimum of 2 years experience. When she checked jobbridge to see if the company were aloud do this, she found they were. Who’s idea was that?? Internships should be offered to school/college graduates ONLY! Experienced professionals, under no circumstances, should be aloud partake in an Internship as it takes paid jobs out of the market & increases the welfare budget which is picked up by the tax payer! At a very minimum, the company/business involved should pick up the €50 extra paid to the intern p/w. That wasn’t just a bad idea for whoever came up with that/signed of on it, it’s beyond stupid & a clear example that simply not enough is being done by government
very good point eoin..its a form of cheap labour and exploits the people on the scheme.they also say u can work on ur week off for urself but then if caught the tax man comes after u… no incentives to work in this country anymore
the only good thing to come out of it is that it proves to a future employer that u are willing to work no matter what..then they probably try to screw u over for cheap labour too!!!
I have to disagree with you there. All we hear is the horror stories. My sister got a Jobsbridge internship in Waterford that she loved. Recently her nine months was up and they offered her a job in the organisation. While I obviously don’t agree with the companies that are blatantly extracting the Michael with the scheme, not all the stories are negative!
@ Gareth: I’m almost certain that employers can’t seek out people with experience for JobBridge internships. I haven’t been able to find a specific rule/guideline on the site stating this but there’s statements such as this ” Its aim is to assist in breaking the cycle where jobseekers are unable to get a job without experience, either as new entrants to the labour market after education or training or as unemployed workers wishing to learn new skills” which implies its for those without experience.
Any employer seeking someone with experience is exploiting the scheme as they’ll get the benefits of an experienced employee without having to train/mentor them which is a main component of the scheme. I think it’d be worth contacting Dept of Social Protection/JobBridge to get them to look into it.
@ Val, I get what you’re saying. I don’t think the scheme is totally negative but at times I think the negatives outweighs the positive. I think it’s worthwhile for people looking for experience but I think there’s plenty of examples of companies hiring an intern to fill a vacancy that would have previously been filled by a fully paid employee. An obvious example of that is the HSE recruiting several employees. There’s currently an embargo on hiring in the public service including certain sections of the HSE so the likelihood of interns being hired by the HSE afterwards is virtually nill.
Obviously it’s good news if people are employed after their internships. But I think there’s several employers who take on interns while knowing that they will not keep them on after their placement finishes. If these people pick up valuable experience throughout then it’s worthwhile but I still think they should be paid minimum wage while doing so.
Won’t be a city for much longer with the plans of your buddies Hogan and Reilly leads to the loss of the city council and the regional hospital.
Well said Wayne
Ciara I am one of your constituents. Instead of platitudes which attempt to placate the infuriated voters of Waterford City, how about some real action, such as:
1. Not loading the Irish people up with an illegal banking debt.
2. Not supporting austerity caused by said debt which is crippling families.
3. Most importantly for Waterford, demanding full University status for WIT, which would be the catalyst for regenerating the city – bit some hare-brained scheme which will probably fail.
4. Get Fine Gael to honour 4 above which they promised while in opposition.
5. Demand that Waterford City and Councils not merge – unless ALL cities outside Dublin are treated equally.
6. Tell O’Reilly hands off Waterford Regional Hospital and his attempts to dismantle and downgrade it – with your apparent consent.
7. Lastly, walk from the joke shop which is the “Labour Party”, which has jumped into bed with a right wing Conservative party every chance it got.
The people of Waterford City are sick to the death of being politically under represented and ignored. It is time for action – not words.
100% agree Eamon.
It is because you are an infuriated voter that that this is happening to you.
Governments will only ever serve the people who support them. Governments will never support those who don’t support them.
You don’t know the situation on the ground. Far deeper than that.
As one of Ciara’s constituents, I’m sorry to say I’m rather cynical about this article. It smacks of self promotion and little else. Of much more interest to the people of Waterford is the outcome of the meeting you recently had with Minister Reilly regarding the restructuring and break-up of the hospitals in the South East, as reported by the Irish Independent yesterday – http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/local-hospital-network-faces-radical-shakeup-warns-reilly-29068730.html – yet, on this and a number of other ‘difficult’ issues, you are unwilling to even respond to your constituents.
I genuinely hope some good comes from this scheme, but after two years of Ciara’s mirage politics, I, and most people in Waterford, are less than optimistic.
The abolition of parking fees would be a great place to start. Get rid of traffic warden & clamping companies, as these regimes frighten away shoppers from driving into town. Get real, just abolish it, immediately!
Drops parking charges by all means but Waterford badly needs traffic wardens, the amount of double parking that goes on throughout Waterford is unreal!
Especially the quays, it makes an entire lane of the quays useless when your leaving Waterford once you hit the clocktower onwards when you are driving towards the bridge
Fair point Barry, but that is an issue which can easily be resolved. My point is simply, make it more attractive to draw custom into town, rather than frightening it away.
@ciara Conway , here,s a novel way that will breathe life back into local economy
STOP TAXING THE SHIT OUT OF PEOPLE, we have nothing left to spend, so more shops will close = higher unemployment.
Its not rocket sicence ffs
It would be fitter for you to prevent the downgrade of Waterford Regional Hospital.
It’s hard to take any of this seriously from a member of the Labour parliamentary party.
“I am the ……..” and then I stopped. If she has to tell us who she is , it’s not worth reading.
Point. Why should TDs get more pay than Senators ? They ought both to be on the lower level , at the VERY least.
Why do they get paid for just turning up to work? Why…………… The list is endless. Maybe the Journal will take up the cudgel in this respect. I do not know if politicians are aware of public anger at so many aspects of their renumeration [and pensions]. I read that Westminster is now introducing mental health clinics [free of course] for MPs and Lords. A British example we could well do to follow.
Why comment if you didn’t read the article?
The same councils grant planning permission to supermarkets in the centre of towns or within walking distance which kills all businesses. See below list of products and services from Tesco in the Uk and include home delivery. List of goods and Services in the UK
Fruit and Veg
Butchers
Fish
Groceries
Confectionery
Bakery
Off licence
Newspapers and magazines
Stationary
Kitchen hardware
Toys
Gifts
Garden Plants
Interflora -franchise
Furniture
Mobile phone/Home phone/Broadband
Insurance – Pet ins, House ,Car .Phone ,Personal Accident .travel, Life,
Holidays
Mortgages
Banking
Credit Cards
On-line Insurances and mortgage business.
Dental Care
Optician and laser treatments
Gold for Cash
Home electrical equipment
Sound and vision
PC and internet
Coffee shop
Videos and DVD’s
Chemists
Pet Shop
Clothing for all the Family
Shoes
Concert ticketsdd
Most Town centre will be ghost towns. Unemployment will increase in the retail and services.
Our councils and councillor a are like the bankers —– they just have vested interests to satisfy.
On last count I believe Waterford City has 4 maybe 5 tesco’s outside of the city centre,
The council created this donut affect by allowing these
There are just two Tescos outside the City Centre. One at Ardkeen (2003) and one at Ballybeg (2012). Tescos Poleberry is effectively in the City Centre. The one at Ardkeen has a catchment area of around 4-5,000 homes. So no “donut” effect.
There are only two out of town centres. Ardkeen which houses only three to four retailers including Tescos and Butlerstown, which houses HN etc. for reasons best known to the authorities they forced TK Maxx to close in this development for some minor planning contravention.
I don’t know when you last counted Barry as there are only 3 Tescos outside the city centre, namely Lisduggan, Ballybeg and Ardkeen. I agree that the Ballybeg branch was unnecessary but do try to get your figures right if you intend to use them in an argument.
Your parties politics are bad, and you should feel bad! – Zoidberg
Politicians always telling us what they’re going to do. Evidence always dictates otherwise.
Cities with high unemployment ? ? ?
Are there any cities with low unemployment?
There’s city’s and towns with lower unemployment,
Waterford has one of the highest unemployment in Ireland, if not the highest
Lower does not mean low.
Every city, town and village has high unemployment.
Ireland is the capital of unemployment.
To explain myself better, you cannot judge on place to be in more need than the other in terms of unemployment.
As an example, could you go to Somalia and say that one child is more hungry than the other and feed the one that you feel needs it most? Both are hungry, both are malnourished and both will suffer the same fate.
To determine which one suffers that fate first is called discrimination.
Dun Lao-Rathdown has about a 7% unemployment rate according to the census
That may be correct but since the last cencus was carried out a year ago …
1) how many have lost their job?
2) how many under 18 year olds have now turned 18 and are now unemployed?
3) what does the future hold for those that will turn 18 in the next few years?
The facts are that unemployment and debt are the only 2 stastics that are on the increase in this country. ( ok, you may argue that I left out suicide)
The government is not capable of solving the issue that too many people are out of work claiming benefits rather than in work paying taxes.
The South East and Waterford has suffered disproportionately in this crisis, all research under taken supports this.
The analogy would be a child with malnutrition verses a child with severe malnutrition, both can be saved but only one needs immediate intensive efforts to be saved.
Seems to be an admission by Government that the promised legislation to ban upward only rent reviews is not going to happen?
Now we will never know if that would have helped the retail sector.
Like ThomasFrancisMeagher, Eamonn Bolger, Shane Gavin and Jamie Walsh I too am one of Ciara’s constituents and in fact know her personally (not very well, but through the odd bit of local journalism).
I was broadly supportive of her at election time as a female candidate and a candidate with a strong connection to my hometown, however from almost day one in government she has done very little for Waterford. In a sense I’m glad I didn’t have the vote at the time as I’d now regret my support of her. Here once again she is taking a positive stance on local issues without having actually done anything towards it herself. She is quoted in the Examiner as saying she “lobbied” for this scheme, but it seems to me that Michael Noonan has brought this in for Limerick and added Waterford as a token gesture. I would much prefer to see her lobby for significant job creation and urban regeneration in Waterford rather than yet another narrow criteria tax incentive. Earlier this month as she tweeted from the Dáil chamber, I replied and implored her to represent those who voted for her by voting against the rushed through IBRC bill. Alas she toed the party line once again, without showing any personal conviction towards the issue at hand. John Halligan is doing more for Waterford from the opposition benches than Ciara Conway has done from her backbench government seat. Perhaps to redeem some credibility she could resign the party whip and join John on the other side.On thing is for certain, Deputy Conway’s re-election chances are very much in doubt.
While writing my previous comment I was searching frantically for an article on her that I wanted to quote but I’ve only found it now. In this week’s Munster Express she told Dermot Keyes that for her to resign the party whip would be “populist” and not “in the best interests of the people who voted for me or for the entire constituency”. She went on to say “I don’t believe that resigning my whip would achieve anything for the people of Waterford”.
I would challenge her to name anything significant she has achieved for Waterford up to now and if she can’t give a satisfactory answer I don’t see what she would have to lose in joining Róisín Shortall (for whom she has the “utmost respect”) on the other side of the house.
This has to be a joke, come on Ciara you can’t be serious??? A recent ESRI report was recently analysed on RTE’s news at 6; the conclusion was that while Limerick and Galway had been minimally affected by the recession, the SE and particularly Waterford had been crushed. It was also stated that new businesses will not locate in Waterford – full stop!
Firstly, there were no relevant IT or science courses on offer at WIT as part of the Springboard – nothing to attract in new businesses; nothing to help people who had lost their jobs to retrain in the employment attractive areas of IT or Science; nothing to attract these industries to Waterford.
I emailed the 4 TD’s and many of the local councillors in June of 2012 to highlight this fact – not one of the TD’s or local councillors appeared to be aware of the facts regarding the Springboard courses on offer at WIT.
8 months have passed and WIT is now offering a conversion course in ICT skills, this is mainly for people with an honours degree in something other than IT and is free to jobseekers – I think there are 30 places on offer although I may be wrong on the places. That’s the kind of progress we make in Waterford, too little too late!
Perhaps you could investigate areas like this if you want to bring life and money back to Waterford, (very few of these courses are part of the Waterford Springboard initiative however )- yes – they are available in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Dublin.
From the Springboard site:
“THE SPRINGBOARD INITIATIVE IN HIGHER EDUCATION OFFERS FREE, PART-TIME COURSES AT CERTIFICATE, DEGREE AND MASTERS LEVEL. SPRINGBOARD HAS IDENTIFIED THE FOLLOWING IN DEMAND QUALIFICATIONS AMONG EMPLOYERS.
Bio-Pharmachem
Business/Management Skills
Food & Beverage
Green Economy
ICT
International Financial Services
Medical Devices ”
Much much much more is needed and its needed now. We need to attract industries so we can have money to spend in these revamped shops.
“Retailers will be entitled to relief on works undertaken to upgrade or refit their shops” – Have you actually visited Waterford City recently\? I strongly doubt retailers in Waterford are making enough money to owe tax in the first place, never mind undertake any type of work so entitling them to relief! It isn’t really worth anything, its just lip service – again!
At this stage if you want to make Waterford a “Living City” the council needs, through their own investment to breathe some life back into Waterford City.
We need a Sarah Beeny-like person to come, evaluate the city, offer shop front designs and colour schemes that will complement each other – and this vision of Waterford would have to be complied with. We need a city that is inviting and interesting to look at, and interesting to visit. We need the City planners not to be involved in this process as so far all they’ve down is drive people out of the city with their ideologically driven agendas.
We need our Sarah Beeny-like person to do this within a reasonable time, in budget, and with a penalty clause attached should they not met their contract obligations.
Small businesses in Waterford could carry out this work. The ridiculous tendering processes that force them out of bidding for this type of work, at low cost, should be abolished, thus allowing for the work to be done locally and at a cheaper cost. They could also allow a number of people to finish apprenticeships via the TUS or similar scheme, on a project like this one!
The City Council should be willing to pay for this new vision of Waterford, they should be willing to invest in businesses in Waterford, they should lead by example. They could also offer free parking for say an hour to attract people back into the city centre, that’s while we still have one!
TK Maxx was forced by the City planners to move from a location on the outer ring road in Waterford. The main reason given was it was taking people and money out of the City Centre (the money is now spent online from what I can see). The unit TK Maxx was located in was designed for bulk goods only, YET this fact was somehow bypassed in the first instance. I, and many others would visit this shop at the weekend, the shop was almost always full, the massive carpark was extremely busy; the other shops in this shopping park seemed much busier – it was somewhere for people to go at the weekend. They all seem to shop either online or in Kilkenny now!
B and Q is to close its shop in Waterford. Another major multinational retailer also located in this shopping park has about 2 months left on its lease, their shop in Waterford is said to be the worst performing one in Ireland; the City management should now be on there hands and knees begging TK Maxx to move back to the area in a bid to boost businness and stop money from leaving Waterford – that would help, but I doubt they’ll do it!
There are many things that could be done, but with rumours that our hospital services are to be downgraded, with our rates based on square footage rather than acheiveble rents as they are in some other counties, our airport having a runway that won’t faciltate visitings MNC CEO’s; our 3rd level IT offering the unemployed free courses in tourism, etc. etc (I could go on). The point is that with out meaningful and immediate change here we are all doomed!
As a proud Waterford man and one of Ciara’s constituents, I for one am sick to death of her mirage Politics and spoofing. No where to be seen when it comes to tackling the difficult issues like the proposed break up of Waterford Regional Hospital or the cutbacks to the Waterford College of Further Education. Ciara, your a disgrace and a sham and I for one Can’t wait to turf you out come the next election.
Another joke…The Regen plans for Limerick are virtually the same as when they had three times the amount of money to waste. Sofar all they did was move anti social fammlies out of Moyross and Southhill and put them into welfare and tax paid council owned accomadation on estates where people actually have mortages and jobs ,which has added to the property price drops.Then they have started planning to build a road that is totally unnecessary to the North of Limerick,which has opposition to by 95% of the people living in the Nth Limerick/SE Clare area.
Another sop of jobs for the boys and girls in the elite positions.
have your say