Waterford IT to get €12m to finish stalled sports complex

The Government is to provide Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) with a €12.1m loan towards the completion of its stalled sports campus and the purchase of its student village.

The news comes less than a month after the former head of a company, tasked with delivering the Carriganore Sports Campus, issued a report blaming “inadequate leadership” at WIT for the delay of the project, which is now estimated to run €4.3m over budget.

Eugene McKenna, former CEO of WIT Diverse Campus Services, said that WIT’s attempts to consolidate the incorporated company as a subsidiary of the college led to the deferral of work.

In his report to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Mr McKenna said the design team behind the project estimated that the delays would lead to the project running millions of euro over budget.

However, the Department of Education confirmed it is to provide an extra €2.1m towards the completion of the Carriganore Sports Complex. It had already approved funding for the works on foot of the report by Dermot Quigley, the former chairman of the Revenue Commissioners, who had inspected the relationship between WIT and some companies providing services to it.

“It has been agreed with WIT following an intense series of meetings and discussions over several months which were designed to establish that there was a need for the additional funding and that the provision of the funding would ensure a final resolution of the issues which were the subject of Mr Quigley’s report,” said a department spokesperson.

John Deasy, Waterford TD and vice-chairman of the PAC, said work will begin in the next two weeks and will be finished by June.

“The PAC has been dealing with the department for the past year on this and the WIT debt situation,” he said. “There was a realisation from officials the State needed to step in and give the institute a helping hand.”

WIT officials will appear before the PAC next week, when the sports campus will be discussed.

“The overarching thing for me is that we put a nail, finally, in the legacy issues that have surrounded WIT and we’re at that point now ... so the institute can move on to complete its application for technological university status,” Mr Deasy said.