Watch: Official launch of Magee Taskforce interim report recommending push for 10,000 students in Derry by 2032
Watch: Official launch of Magee Taskforce interim report recommending push for 10,000 students in Derry by 2032
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00:00I'll maybe hand over to the Vice-Chancellor first because we're in his front room in many respects, to offer a welcome.
00:07Thank you very much and I'd just like to offer some public thanks actually to the Minister for commissioning the task group and for the ongoing interest in a project that's of interest to all of us on this table and beyond.
00:19And of course I'd also like to extend my thanks to the whole of the taskforce chaired by Stephen Kelly for the work that's been done in that regard.
00:29From me I feel this is a real opportunity. We have of course been growing on this campus for some years now and I've been out there publicly saying we can go so far but once we go so far there are some constraints on our growth
00:47and I've been really pleased to see the response in terms of working through those constraints and working out how the environment can change.
00:56And I have to say I've seen real movement in relation to that. Interventions that the Minister has already made has made a real difference to us, that we've been able to grow further this year than we otherwise would have been
01:07and I've been able to extend our commitments in response to that change in the operating environment as I call it. So I think it's really good progress and I think for the first time we're really seeing the scale of the challenge you might say but also the massive scale of the opportunity for what will be an amazing investment for this city and indeed the wider region.
01:31Thanks Paul and Minister maybe you can pick some questions.
01:33Thank you very much and thank you all for coming along. I'm delighted again to be up here with Derry and McGee campus to have a conversation with the task force.
01:47I want to place on record my thanks, my gratitude to them for the work that they have undertaken as good citizens coming together in the interests of this city and this region to chart progress that is necessary in order to get this campus to the level of students that have been committed to in the New Decade New Approach agreement.
02:08Of course that was a commitment and agreement which was drafted by both governments and the parties signed up to go back into the executive but has yet had no detail attached as to how that would be achieved.
02:19That commitment is now part of the programme for government which was launched this week. I think that then is entirely the ownership of the parties because it was the parties themselves in the executive that crafted that agreement and subscribed to the ambition that I have been taking the lead on in terms of our department over the last number of months and that the task force here very thankfully have taken forward very significantly.
02:44So today's report is not a staging post in terms of I would hope confidence from people up here and confidence from people across North West that this project is live and is very much happening.
02:55It's already seen an increase in numbers here and the commitment is there to get the university here to 10,000 students and beyond that into the future who knows what my sense is of an economic growth that is predicted to happen around this region with the university as a capitalist club.
03:13If it kicks in properly then the sky is the limit for hopefully the region itself but certainly for the university at the centre of all of that.
03:21So very pleased to get that report. There are a number of issues raised in it. This was all as we have accepted while it is the Department of Economy's responsibility to lead this is an executive wide commitment and that was reinforced again this week in the programme for government.
03:36And it will be a matter for all of the departments, for the council, for all stakeholders in and around this city and this region to come together to ensure the delivery of the target that we have set ourselves.
03:47So I look forward very much to the study of the report that we have received, providing answers that have been asked on the questions, talking to my executive colleagues in relation to that and assisting the group itself to move on then to produce this final report before the end of the year.
04:02Thanks very much Minister. Happy to take questions. If you just identify who you are so that the Minister in particular knows.
04:08Kevin from the Dairy Journal. Minister do you agree with the taskforce estimate that this can be achieved by 2032 within 8 years?
04:17I am always in favour of setting ambitious targets. They have been asked to do the work in discussion with the University and the University itself and the Vice-Chancellor have been a critical part of the work of the taskforce and if their estimation is that that is doable in that time then I will certainly lend all my weight to achieving that in that time period.
04:37Minister we obviously know that we have this estimated price tag and you talk there about confidence. How confident are you that following on your commitment that you can also follow through with the estimated amount that it is going to cost to try and bring this report and plans to fruition?
04:57Well as I say this was a commitment that was put down in a paper by both governments in 2020 as part of the NDA commitment. It has now been inserted into the programme for government by all of the parties and the executive. It is a commitment there to be met by all of the parties and the executive of course with the support of both governments.
05:14So yes I am confident that it will be met. What we need to do is see, there are a number of questions that have arisen out of the interim report which we will bring answers to and that will inform the final report. That will be presented to the executive then as how they meet the commitment that we have already made and the commitment is there to reach that target. This is the steps that need to be taken to do it.
05:36I said when we were chatting up the stairs, people view this in terms of this is the cost of this project. This is an investment in this region. This region needs to grow economically. The people of this region have identified this as a central capitalist project in order to secure economic growth. This is an investment which will have a much bigger return than the cost of the investment itself.
05:57So it's not just simply about the cost of a project in a university site and students and accommodation. It's about the investment in the growth of the region. The executive has a priority for growing regions through a regional balance and therefore I see very much that we shouldn't be just viewing this in terms of what it might cost but what it might return and what it will return for generations ahead in this region.
06:27Given that £25 million has been spent in the past 10 years, how can we really be confident that £700 million is going to be spent in aid?
06:34Well there's been £152 million spent here in relation to the university over recent years.
06:40Well as I say, this is an executive commitment. It's not a Department of Economy on its own commitment. We lead on it and we will continue to lead on it. And what I'm saying is this is an executive programme for government commitment. If the executive is going to meet that, what we are going to do through the work of the taskforce is map out the challenges that are there in order to meet that and how they will be met and what the costs will be.
07:03In that regard, the work of the university itself has been critical in working with the people in the taskforce to make sure that what was a line in an agreement is now a centre part of a programme for government and by the end of this year will become a detailed plan on how to actually achieve that. And that hadn't been the case up to this point.
07:22So it is my intention to make sure that we achieve that. It is my intention to make sure that the executive commitment is held to and I have every confidence that we will achieve that over the coming years.
07:32Will they admit that Sinn Féin and Stormont have failed the region in Thornmouth?
08:02We're not the only party that represents this city and this region and we have done our bit and I have to say if you look at the record that we have in terms of the departments we have taken and the commitment that we have sustained to this area then I think that stacks up well against any party.
08:16So I'm not quite sure why you think the whole responsibility of Sinn Féin and the whole failure for the growth of the North West over the last 100 years of partition is the responsibility of Sinn Féin and the fault of Sinn Féin.
08:26We are certainly doing it and we have a very strong track record of doing what we can to support the growth of the North West. That's been our commitment for some time. It remains our commitment. What is actually happening here today is the fulfilment of that commitment.
08:47Jonathan.
08:49Well you hear scepticism there and there's been many false dawns. What would you say to those people out there who look at the figures and they know the history and they feel that possibly this might not happen. How would you persuade them that this will happen?
09:04Well I recognise the scepticism and I recognise the reasons for it. As a matter of fact I think the task force themselves have stated that clearly and they recognise the historic sense of lack of investment, the historic sense of treatment of this region and this city in particular and what is needed to do to turn that around.
09:25So all the parties in the Executive were part of the NDNA commitment agreement coming back in to grow this university to 10,000. That's now been inserted into the programme for government by all of the parties in the Executive. The Department of Economy is to take the lead on that and that's what we've been doing since I came into office in February. That's why the task force was formed in March to get us up and running in that regard.
09:46We are making progress step by step and you can see the expansion already in terms of students, the growth of the medical school, the plans for further growth in that regard. You can see the expansion of accommodation that's beginning to take place around the city. All of these are positive signs and what we need to do is sustain the momentum which we have started.
10:06So that not just the people in the task force who are confident and people like myself in government who are confident that this will be achieved but that people in the city and in the region start to get that confidence as well. And so this is a whole city approach to this. That's why the council are represented upstairs, the trade unions, the community and voluntary sector in the city, the businesses in the city are all represented on the task force. Every one of those sectors are confident that this is moving and this is going to happen and I would hope that in due course the broad populace get the same sense of confidence.
10:35I'll just add to that, Gareth. This will be in the investment strategy for Northern Ireland. It's in the draft programme for government. We're going to get more precision around the language that's in there. We would hope that the executive would adopt our paper today but also the action plan that comes beyond that. It's in the university strategy for the first time. If you look around the back of the room there's a small proportion of the team of people who are actually working every day and actually delivering this.
11:01This isn't just now a project that's in the mind of one person or in the gift of one person to drive the work through. 700 million pound price tag on it. 40% roughly potentially comes from the private sector in terms of the opportunity piece around student accommodation.
11:19The money that's left, a large proportion of that's already been committed. There's more money required but it will require, absolutely, and the Minister has given us his commitment to try and ensure that that's delivered, a sustained direct intervention both in terms of the capital investment and in terms of the support for student numbers.
11:38We're confident that there's a plan there because the commitment's there, the indicative plan is there and the indicative price is there. We're in a better place now today than we were four months ago when we started this work. One final question from anyone? You always have questions Harold.
11:57Can I ask the Vice-Chancellor one question? Are you convinced now that there will be 10,000 students on this campus within eight years?
12:07I am convinced that that can be done. It's a really tight schedule and the way to get it done is to simply do it. To give you perhaps an example, two examples. I started off with this press conference by referencing that we'd already had some increase in student numbers and that's already allowed us to go further.
12:28I have said to our Director of Estates here that what I want to see is a capital plan, not just a draft capital plan. Assume the money's coming, do the capital plan for everything that we're going to do in relation to that and let's just do it, knowing that there'll be time for capital plans.
12:45So I am working on the assumption that we are going to do it. I have said to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor who looks after academic planning, I now need to go forwards and we have to work out what do the subject lines look like, the additional subject lines that we will have to run to do that. So we are planning on that purpose. I've never done that before.
13:04You know I've gone out publicly and said under the status quo and we're funded and so forth, I can only go so far. But the people on the taskforce and the Minister here has given significant commitments in that regard and so we have to step further and we have to take more risk in relation to that. The University has always been taking risk in this regard and I think some of that is acknowledged in that. But they've given me the opportunity and my colleagues the opportunity to go further and we absolutely have that duty and responsibility not to let other people down in that regard.
13:34Is that it everyone? Thanks very much.