Criticism of 'devastating' lack of focus on Waterford and southeast in programme for Government

The programme for Government is "devastating" in its lack of focus on Waterford and the southeast region despite a tenth of the country's population living in the region, a leading academic says.Dr Ray Griffin, strategic management lecturer at Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), said the "political antenna of Dublin and Cork has no understanding of the depth of alienation in the southeast".

"Whilst the West and Mid-West are publicly licking their wounds at getting nothing in the Programme for Government, and being closed out of their God-given right to sit at cabinet, the southeast usually goes unmentioned," he said.