Waterford institute gets €20m investment

WATERFORD’S reputation as a hub of enterprise and education has received a €20 million boost.

Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) chairman Redmond O’Donoghue and its director, Professor Kieran R Byrne, received news at the weekend that the Government is to invest €20 million in a tourism and leisure building at the Institute’s Cork Road campus.

The high-profile building of 7,700 sq m (82,882 sq ft) will occupy a site at the Cork end of the campus and provide an architectural counterpoint to the landmark ETS Walton Information and Communications Technology building; the Luke Wadding Library and the health sciences building at the city end.

The state-of-the art facility will accommodate 50 staff and 1,050 students pursuing courses in the services sector.

The new facility will also cater for language and recreation and leisure students, including teaching areas, lecture theatres, and computer and language laboratories.

Welcoming the funding announcement, Redmond O’Donoghue said it represented a major vote of confidence in Waterford and the southeast by the Government, and recognition of the vital importance of the tourism, hospitality and leisure sector to Ireland’s economic prosperity. He said: “This new facility on the Institute’s main campus will provide for programmes that will strengthen Ireland’s economic performance in this increasingly important sector”.

The WIT chairman added that this capital investment by the Government “clearly demonstrates their confidence in our Institute and will underpin our ability to perform, to develop academically, and add further to the prestigious reputation that has been won at national and international level”.

WIT director Professor Byrne said plans for the new facility were prepared after close analysis of international models and are exceptionally progressive in facilitating a variety of uses.

“Waterford will now become an internationally recognised centre with distinct specialist capability in tourism, hospitality and leisure studies — one of the great growth areas in the global economy,” he said.

Mr Byrne expects the new facility to facilitate the arrival of more international students to the southeast, and said many Asian students are already preparing to pursue the type of programmes that will be based there.

“An important component of the work undertaken in this space will be research across the services sector and this will in turn feed in to policy making and planning at a regional, national and international level while also helping to enhance operational performance in individual enterprises,” Mr Byrne said.