Three years ago, when asked if there was a master plan for Dublin airport, one Aer Rianta official memorably declared: "They tell me that there is - but I don't believe them!" And yes, the terrible truth is there wasn't a master plan then and there still isn't one.
The airport has grown like Topsy. The original terminal building, built during the second World War and long acknowledged as one of the finest works of 20th century architecture in Ireland, is now swamped by the addition of extra buildings, none of them up to the standard of the original.
The main terminal, opened in 1972, is by far the worst. Its only redeeming feature is the spiral ramp that was meant to feed into a car-park on the upper levels. This could not be used for security reasons, so the space is filled by boxy offices behind the building's concrete "fins".
Internally, though the departures area is generously high, the arrivals area is oppressively low. Circulation from the octagonal Pier B is bizarre, with arriving passengers required first to go downstairs, then upstairs and then downstairs again into the bedlam of the baggage hall.
The latest working addition, Pier C, with its trendily cool grey interior and aeronautical sunshades, nearly repeats this rigmarole. Passengers disembarking there must take an escalator up to the first floor, walk along a lengthy corridor and take another escalator down to bedlam.
The pier is also unusual in that it is one-sided. Because of the configuration of the airport's main runway, there was no room to build it perpendicular to the main terminal , like Pier A and Pier B. As a result, only the west side of Pier C can be used for aircraft parking.
The same architects, Henry J. Lyons and Partners, also designed the main terminal extension, using a similar palette of materials. Its first phase is now complete and due to open in the autumn (too late for the summer crowds), with the second phase scheduled to open next spring.
Mr Flann Clune, long-serving spokesman for Aer Rianta, said the completion of this major project would boost Dublin airport's capability to 20 million passengers a year - roughly double its present design capacity. This year, throughput is expected to reach 14 million.
Car parking has become a major headache. In most airports, the standard provision is 1,000 parking spaces per one million passengers. But Dublin airport is way ahead of that, with 20,000 spaces, some very remotely located, from which Aer Rianta earns over u£8 million a year.
The problem is compounded by the absence of a rail link. Long-term, this could involve a metro line from Sandyford, running underground through the city centre. A more realistic short-term solution would be to provide a spur from the Sligo line , which could be done in three years.
Pending a resolution of this problem, Aer Rianta has been working to improve road access to the airport by providing new slip-roads to bypass congested roundabouts. Plans are also being made to install a second main runway by 2007, with another terminal. The airports' authority has also been having talks with the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), on a possible framework plan for the future development of Dublin airport.
An RIAI paper proposing a major competition for such a plan was submitted to Aer Rianta in May. Until now, architects were only invited to compete for projects on the basis of fees rather than talent - a cut-price approach reflecting the public service tendering culture. But there is a difference, as former RIAI president David Keane once said, between toilet rolls and, say, the Sydney Opera House.
Architecturally, the most damaging development at the airport - Pier D, which would have blocked the last remaining uninterrupted view of the original terminal building - has been "put on hold", at least until the master plan is resolved.
But no plan for Dublin airport can be finalised until the Government decides whether to open up Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel to civil aviation.