A campaign to secure a university for the south-east is to be announced by SIPTU today. The union says the initiative is badly needed to address regional inequalities, and it will seek to have every political party include the idea in its election manifesto.
It also claims its proposals are a "radical development" of existing demands for Waterford Institute of Technology to be upgraded to university status.
Mr Mike Jennings, the union's south-east regional secretary, said the main campus of the new university should be based in Waterford and incorporate the current WIT. But it would also have colleges in Carlow, Clonmel, Kilkenny and Wexford.
The Carlow and Clonmel centres would involve upgrading the existing Institute of Technology and the Tipperary Rural and Business Development Institute respectively. Wexford had recently been promised a third-level college by the Taoiseach, he pointed out. "SIPTU feels that this institution should be a full university college - a part of the overall university of the south-east - with faculties and departments specialising in disciplines which are rich in economic and employment spin-offs.
"Each college of this new university should reflect the needs of the town or city it is based in, but also reflect indigenous characteristics and aptitudes - for example the arts, food science, tourism studies, marine studies, business, information technology, biotechnology etc."
Mr Jennings said he was finalising work on a pamphlet setting out the case for such a university. "We can produce research and hard figures to show that this is not just a fad but that there is real economic justification behind it," he said.
"Anyone who doubts the enormous impact a university can make to a town, city or region needs only to look at the experience of Galway and Limerick. "In the case of Galway, the university there performed almost like an economic and intellectual Gulf Stream which, even in the worst periods of economic stagnation in the west, kept Galway city from freezing in the chill of recession and backwardness," he said.
A new university would enable the Government to provide the extra assistance which was needed by urban centres such as Waterford and Wexford - acknowledged black spots of unemployment - without breach ing EU law, Mr Jennings added.
The fact that neither centre was located in a region for EU funding purposes meant they did not qualify for the same level of job-assistance support as Galway, which was booming.
This was an injustice stemming from complicated European regional policy, but a university would be a major jobenhancing institute and could help address this anomaly.
"Why is it that Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway all have at least one university and all have at least two third-level colleges, while Waterford has no university and only one third-level college? It is simply not fair."
The SIPTU campaign was welcomed by Mr Oliver Clery, secretary of the Waterford University Action Campaign, founded 15 years ago.
Mr Clery said he had no difficulty with it being a south-east university with facilities throughout the region, but to get recognition it would need to have a solid centre in one location.
