Waterford Airport redevelopment is currently on budget and may even be delivered ahead of schedule, according to Waterford Airport CEO, William Bolster, who was speaking at the Construction Industry Federation’s Construct 2026 conference last week.
While the takeover by a then anonymous American billionaire was met with some controversy locally, it was said repeatedly by experienced stakeholders that private investment by a business person using their own money is the ideal scenario for a large development like this.
Public investments of State money are often slowed down by substantial procurement and tendering rules, and even when funding commitments are made, State funds can be slow to be released as many projects across the country inevitably compete for the same money.
Speaking at an Extraordinary General Meeting back in December 2025, Michael Walsh, former Chief Executive of Waterford Council, and board member of Waterford Airport before the recent take over, said the investment offers an unprecedented opportunity for Waterford Airport to succeed. While other airports are limited to what he called ‘limp along’ public funding, Waterford Airport will have a sole owner who has invested their own money and has the highest level of business acumen to drive the project forward.
Interestingly, Mr. Bolster made similar comments during a panel discussion chaired by Paul Sheridan, CIF Main Contracting Director, about the role of critical infrastructure in growth.
While speakers like Tricia McElligott, Area Manager for the ESB, highlighted the extensive work being done by the State to encourage building developments, Mr. Bolster suggested that his experience as the head of Waterford Airport, was not the best example of local developments collaborating with the State.
“Waterford Airport is probably a good example where you remove constraints that delay a project,” he explained. “If I was to go the public route or have that public [State-funded] partnership, I wouldn’t be started the job today,” Mr. Bolster said.
“Whereas if you look at it now, we [at Waterford Airport] are ahead of schedule, we are on budget, and we’ll probably finish the contract ahead of time.”
Despite the well reported difficulties with central government, Mr. Bolster highlighted that Waterford Airport has received crucial and sustained support from local government in the form of Waterford Council.
“At the same time there is a very important partnership needed there. Whilst I mightn’t have had a great collaboration with national government, for local government I think the airport is a very good example of joining together with local councillors, partnerships with South East Technological University and so on,” he said.
“From a local point of view the support we get from Sean McKeown [Waterford Council] CEO, planners, the department of services, it shows that with help like that you can get a project done.”
Mr. Bolster also gave an update on recent planning applications submitted by the airport, explaining that these were deemed necessary due to interest from some of the world’s largest companies.
“Again, I suppose the Airport being a good example of what is happening at the moment and the knock on effect of it. We haven’t even finished the runway yet, and we had to bring forward an application to apply for planning permission for a new terminal,” he said.
“As part of that we have to include a Fixed Based Operation which is a private terminal, because so many people were attracted to Waterford and the region now that it’s going to justify that.”
A Fixed Based Operator is a business located on airport property that provides essential aviation services like ground handling, repairing, fuelling etc.
“With that then brought forward,” and Mr. Bolster joked this was a first world problem to highlight that it was not a complaint, “We had to apply for a very large hanger development, 15,000 square metres because we got approached by some of the largest companies in the world”.
“So, we had to move forward with that quite quickly because we are able to now guarantee that the infrastructure is there to get people there in the first place.”
GAA JERSEYS AWAY
Expanding on this, Mr. Bolster said it may be time to put the GAA jerseys away, in a comment that meant from the perspective of international aviation, thinking and acting on a county-by-county basis is not effective. Instead, a regional approach was needed.
“And an interesting one was when I was trying to persuade Michael O’Leary to come on board, the South East is quite strong, if you look at 2025 there were 3.1 million travellers out [of the area] and Waterford would be the closest airport to that 3.1 million,” Mr. Bolster said.
“What we need is a bit of joined-up thinking,” Mr Bolster continued. “And we need to put away the GAA jerseys sometimes, as Wexford, Kilkenny, Carlow, Tipperary need to start coming together and we need to have some kind of a forum there that joins everyone up together.
“There is quite a lot to be done in the South East,” he added.
AARON KENT Funded by The Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
