One of the bridges, a pedestrian link from Eustace Street to Ormond Quay by Howley Harrington, was the winner of an architectural competition. The other two, to carry traffic, are being designed by Santiago Calatrava, the world's foremost bridge engineer. Something of a coup for the city manager, Calatrava's appointment is likely to produce dramatic shapes at Blackhall Place and Macken Street.
"We've got the money for that," says Fitzgerald, who currently has Calatrava's initial sketches "under lock and key" in his office. "He did them over lunch after visiting the two sites a few weeks ago. Even to listen to his concepts, you could see that he had a good sense of what's required. He's also reputed to be living in James Joyce's house in Zurich, so he's naturally interested in doing something in Dublin."
Smithfield, where a new hotel and music centre are due to open in months with other major developments in the pipeline, is to be repaved later this year and given a set of 12 dramatic, gasbrazier lighting structures, each 80 feet high. This exciting scheme, by architects McGarry Ni Eanaigh, was the result of another design competition, as was a plan to turn Wolfe Tone Park into an urban square.
Smithfield is the centrepiece of the HARP rejuvenation area, extending from the GPO side of O'Connell Street to the National Museum at Collins Barracks. This is just one of the corporation's half-dozen integrated area-plans, charting new directions for long-neglected parts of Dublin - Ballymun, the Liberties, Inchicore/Kilmainham, North East Inner City - as well as O'Connell Street itself.
Project managers have been appointed to oversee the implementation of each plan, which will "go ahead anyway" whether or not there is a new package of tax incentives for urban renewal, according to Fitzgerald. "I guarantee you won't recognise the north inner city in five years time. Have a good, hard look at it now, take photographs of it, and come back and hit me over the head if I'm not right."
The design competition to find a replacement for Nelson Pillar drew a record 205 entries, with the 120-metre millennium spire by London-based architect Ian Ritchie emerging as the winner. Though it will cost an estimated £3 million, this represents less than 10 per cent of the budget for O'Connell Street's "renaissance" and not much more than 1 per cent of the private sector investment pledged for the area.
A huge, "galleria-style" shopping mall is planned for the former Carlton cinema site, extending all the way to Moore Street, with a 15-screen multiplex cinema at roof level; the ILAC shopping centre is to be completely renovated, with more than 200 apartments on new upper floors, and a 220-bedroom hotel is earmarked for a site opposite the Rotunda Hospital that has been derelict since Parnell Street was widened in 1988.
But there are discordant notes. While retail in the city centre is doing better than ever (despite the plethora of out-of-town shopping "experiences"), indigenous Dublin outlets are being pushed out by British and other retail multiples. The Jervis Centre, another groundscraper built on the site of one of Dublin's best-known hospitals, has Argos, Boots, Debenhams, Dixons, Marks and Spencer and Tesco; you could just as easily be in Manchester.
Conservationists also complain that the city is losing parts of its fabric, including some worthy interiors, almost on a day-by-day basis because of the development stampede; they call it "death by a thousand cuts". In a way, the replacement of Bewley's in Grafton Street - the "legendary, lofty, clattery cafe" - with the preposterous changling which currently occupies its space is a metaphor for this "new for old" psychosis.
There is also concern about the corporation's more laissez faire approach to high buildings in the city, as exemplified by its decision - now under appeal by 12 parties - to grant planning permission for a major high-rise scheme at George's Quay, opposite the Custom House. Its handling of the much larger development proposed for the National Conference Centre site at Spencer Dock will be watched closely.
The two biggest corporation projects, in terms of their likely cost, are the Dublin Port Tunnel (£180 million and rising) and the Dublin Bay Project (around £200 million). The first is certainly controversial and has been delayed by objections from residents of Marino and elsewhere. The second, which is intended to clean up the inner bay by upgrading the Ringsend sewage treatment plant, is universally welcomed.
Fitzgerald talks with pride about the fact that, long before Ardnacrusha, Dublin Corporation built the Pigeon House power station, on foot of an 1899 decision by the City Council, to provide electric lighting on the city's streets. He is trying to promote a similar "can-do" culture to overcome what he regards as one of Dublin's principal drawbacks - "our inability to get on and implement plans".
He is amused by economists who now blame planners for the "huge infrastructure deficit" in terms of transport. And indeed, the transport planners got their forecasts wrong, "but even five years ago, there wasn't an economist who came remotely near forecasting the growth and prosperity we're now experiencing. And if we had planned for that, we would have been locked up for wasting public money."
All the major projects are way behind schedule - and the port tunnel suffered yet another setback on last week when Geoconsult, the Austrian firm involved in designing it, was convicted and fined £500,000 sterling for safety failures over the collapse of a major tunnel at Heathrow Airport in October, 1994. There may now be a review of the controversial Austrian tunnelling method it has championed.
However, there is good news on other fronts. The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, lost no time in approving the first Luas line from Tallaght to Middle Abbey Street and work is expected to get under way in the autumn. A public inquiry into the second Luas line, linking Sandyford with St Stephen's Green, is due to start in April and consultations are under way on a third line, to serve the northside.
The city manager agrees that a modern, integrated public transport system is vital to the future of Dublin. "If we don't deal with the traffic, we're in deep trouble," he says. But, he says, the new wheelclamping and tow-away regime is beginning to have an effect, while real progress is at last being made to install "quality bus corridors" on the main routes leading into the city centre.
Fitzgerald, who obviously wants to make his mark, is also determined to deal with social deprivation in Dublin's ghettos, both at the core and on the urban periphery, through a programme aimed at renewing the fabric and the community spirit of these neglected areas. "If we can't do something about this now, what hope in hell have we when the inevitable downturn comes around?"
For the present, Dublin Corporation's challenge is to manage the boom, insofar as it can. "I think it's marvellous. It's a great time for me doing what I'm doing. There'll never be a better time," Fitzgerald says. "That's why there's a huge degree of urgency about all these things. And what I try to communicate to the people inside (the corporation) is that we can't sit around talking about our plans because it will just pass us by."
As for those who argue that Dublin Corporation should be building houses for the homeless rather than "meaningless" monuments for the millennium the city manager has a quick response. "Any decent society should be able to do the two things - to build civic monuments for everyone to enjoy and to deal with the problems of the homeless," he says. "If we can't handle that, we shouldn't be here."
The message is clear: whatever about how dramatically Dublin has changed in the past 10 years, it's nothing compared to what lies in store for it in the first decade of the new millennium. Only the filth created by its people seems fated to stay the same, despite a much-improved effort by the corporation to keep the streets clean. Dear old dirty Dubbellin, sure where would we be without it?