Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says he is very frustrated at the lack of progress in the establishment of a Technological University in Waterford.
The application for the TU South East from WIT and IT Carlow has still not been submitted after a memorandum of understanding between both IT's was rejected by the unions in Carlow.
Leo Varadkar says he had always wanted Waterford to be the first TU in the country and is just as frustrated as others about the delay.
"We're very frustrated about it, quite frankly.
"The big thing the government had to do was to pass the legislation to allow technological universities to be established. That's been done.
"I didn't want the first one to be in Dublin because we already have three universities in Dublin.
"I wanted the first one to be here in the South East where there is no university
"I'm frustrated about it, everything is not in our control.
"We are engaging with the unions with the view to answering some of their concerns so that we can go ahead and have TU South East established in 2020
He says having a University in Waterford would be a game-changer for the region.
"We saw the difference that UL made for Limerick and for the Mid West.
"Students staying in the region, students coming in, businesses being spun off.
"You can take the IDA to the South East for site visits and there is a lot of good of IDA investment here.
"No matter how many times they visit, when they ask the question where is your university? Where are your graduate streams, where are your research facilities?
"When you don't have a University you're never going to give them a satisfactory answer. That has to be the thing that changes and 2020 is the year that I want to make sure that happens."
