Ray Griffin: Creating a university in the South-East is all about stroke politics, not education

One of the main buildings on the campus of Waterford Institute of Technology; in 2005, the Cabinet rejected WIT's application to become a full university.  Picture: Denis Minihane

The Italians had Machiavelli to explain their political culture, France had Richelieu and we had Paddy O’Carroll, the late, great UCC sociologist. 

His paper 'Strokes, cute hoors and sneaking regarders' is still the best user manual for Irish politics.

It sets out the deep weave of place in Irish politics, that calls up politicians or 'cute hoors' in Paddy’s technical language, who pull strokes on behalf of a community full of sneaking regarders. 

He argued Ireland was not a democracy because the weave of community, the need to pull for your territory was so strong, it closed off any real political debate or choice.

You need Paddy’s guidance to explain how we arrived at this weeks announcement of the Technological University of the South-East.

Important to say this has nothing to with education, and everything to do with how our national politics works. 

Every Irish university founded after 1980 was a political project of regional development. 

Before then, degrees were for solicitors, priests, and doctors; around 7% of the labour force had been to university. 

Since then university degrees have become central to having a good life. 

Average incomes without a degree are in the mid-twenty thousands, with one averages are closer to fifty grand. 

Certainly, it is hard to buy a house without a degree income.

Indeed, the magic formula of Ireland Inc is higher education, as much as it is low corporation tax or EU membership. 

Up until the 1990s Irish labour was cheap, and the IDA sold us as diligent, hard-working, and low cost; since then the IDA markets talent, which is code for good quality higher education and research.

Cork’s renaissance since the bleak dank lows of the 1980s, scarred by the closure of Sunbeam, Ford, and Dunlop, is substantially an achievement of UCC. 

The University of Limerick, created in 1989, more than anything else washed away the Angela’s Ashes to 'stab city' vibe of Limerick.

Cork and Limerick’s politics is entirely animated by that deep cultural memory of poverty and renaissance through higher education.

Beyond the subtle political patronage of Charlie McCreevy, not much is known about how and why Maynooth was made a university in 1997 but it is now making a fair dent into the economic malaise of the Midlands.

So it was a bit of a surprise when the Cabinet rejected Waterford Institute of Technology’s (WIT) 2005 application to become a full university. 

Rationally, it made no sense. 

Around 10% of Irish people live in the South-East, almost 500,000 people; about 3% of Irish people attend university at any point in time, so you would expect a student population of 15,000, plenty for a university.

Instead of a university, a National Review was instigated — the Hunt report — which essentially asked the Irish higher education system to address the issue. 

From that process the ideas of technological universities (TU) emerged to explicitly address the Waterford problem by creating a new in-between-y category and rationalising the Institute of Technology (IoT) sector. 

Between 2000 and 2020 the university sector grew by 40%, while the IoT/TU sector grew by just 3%.; this growth followed public investment policy.

In the heat of the 2011 general election campaign, Fine Gael promised the South-East a full university. 

In power, they retracted this promise, and attention turned to the management of WIT; careers were abruptly ended, investigation after investigation into WIT generated a lot of smoke and no fire.

Meanwhile, the region commenced a dark economic malaise. 

In fact, it had entered recession a few years before the Celtic Tiger expired, a fact which had provoked the original university application. 

The national recession doubled down on the regional one. As the national economy recovered, the region’s recovery was sporadic and anaemic. 

Regional GDP is now 70% of the national average, incomes are low, unemployment high. PAYE tax returns are 48% of the national average. 

The IDA outrun is miserable. 

Voters have run from the traditional political parties of Government.

The brain-drain that sees 60% of all Leaving Certificate students who go on to higher education leave the region has grown over the decade — truly a lost generation. 

These young people flow into the university cities of Dublin, Cork, and Limerick bringing their parents’ money with them, but then ultimately making their lives and settling away from home.

As the State now spends €10bn this year on capital projects, it would be reasonable to expect the South-East to absorb €880m. 

The Government refuses to publish figures on capital spending, but it is hard to get a rudimentary calculation above €200m. 

Indeed Government have frustrated every strategic issue in the South-East — most symbolically 24/7 cardiac care, but more broadly the hospital, university, M24, airport, North Quays, Trinity Wharf and Abbey Quarter, are all experiencing arrested development.

It is against this backdrop that the announcement to create a technological university of the South-East was received with a whimper. 

Simply put, nobody in the region believes that the decade long stroke of preventing the South-East regions economic and social progress is really over.

In truth, few in the region believe Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar, their parties and their ministers, because to us, they look like cute hoors pulling for Dublin and Cork, each has been intimately involved in halting the regions economic and social progress at every chance they had. 

The ball is in their court to prove us wrong.

• Dr Ray Griffin is a lecturer in strategic management at WIT. His views are personal