For many observers the most obvious manifestation of Ireland's new-found affluence has been the boom in retailing. Since 1990 retail sales have increased by 60 per cent and retail space by 70 per cent.
There are now some four million more square feet of shops in Ireland than a decade ago. Many of these new outlets are concentrated in massive shopping centres, such as the 250,000 sq ft Liffey Valley which earlier this year was refused permission by An Bord Pleanala to double its size.
It is only the ceiling imposed by the Government on the size of future superstores in June 1998 that has halted the creation of even more shopping centres.
Although the creation or refurbishment of shops in Ireland in the past 10 years has had an enormous impact on the urban environment, and has led to a fundamental change in the appearance of every Irish town and city, standards of design have deteriorated rather than improved during the same period as traditional fascias and interiors have been replaced by disposable signage and storage.
It is impossible to find anyone prepared to laud the design merits of Ireland's new retail outlets. The Jervis Centre is typical in this respect; not one of its 330,000 square feet of shops, opened to the public less than four years ago, could be considered worthy of preservation. The entire building could be gutted without qualm and, indeed, it is in the nature of such centres that their contents are easily - and frequently - removed. "I think retail is the area where we have shown least improvement over the past decade," says Derek Tynan, who has designed a number of shops in Ireland and England.
Like many other people concerned about the lack of good design in this State, he points out that Dublin's Grafton Street, Ireland's premier shopping thoroughfare, "has become a British high street".
Some 50 per cent of the outlets in Grafton Street are now occupied by British multiples, and many of their interiors are filled with what might be best summarised as flat-pack fit-outs: easily assembled units decked out in corporate colours and logos.
Where more money has been spent, it is invariably in the standard style for shop design which emerged over the last decade, in which varnished wood and chrome are the most ubiquitous materials.
Rentals on the principal shopping streets of Dublin and other major cities have now become so high that retailers welcome the opportunity to save expenditure on design by following standard patterns.
The consequences on the immediate environment can be shocking, as in the case of the Centra foodstore operating on the corner of Aston Quay and Westmoreland Street in Dublin.
Here, on a key site in the capital facing O'Connell Bridge, the ground floor of Ballast House is covered by a garish turquoise facade and large corporate signage. Inside, the same colour scheme has been used for the walls, and the floor is covered in fast-assembled storage units lit by fluorescent tubes inserted into the lowered ceiling.
Derek Tynan estimates that the average shop fit-out now costs in the region of £100 per square foot, leading to a typical bill of £150,000-£200,000 in a well-designed retail outlet. Given that the fit-out will then have a shelf life of only five to seven years, the desire to skimp on costs is understandable, but may be misguided.
According to architect Hugh Wallace of Douglas Wallace - responsible for the overhaul of Brown Thomas, Clerys and Easons - British retail design has been able to gain such a strong presence here because "Irish retailers have an attitude that design isn't part of their positioning. That's why so many Irish companies haven't survived; they haven't looked on the brand as having an inherent value."
But overseas retailers impose their corporate design without any understanding or appreciation of local architecture, as a glance at the regrettable transformation of every Irish urban centre will confirm.
Derek Tynan describes the Marks & Spencer store in Grafton Street, for example, as "a travesty", as the traditional facade conceals the company's standard bland interior in which dull colours and unpleasant fluorescent lighting are the dominant features. Nearby, Boots occupies a former Hayes, Conyngham & Robinson outlet, one of those acquired when the English company took over the Irish chain in 1998. Soon after that purchase, Boots redesigned the interior of the building in its standard corporate style, a fit-out which, while suitable for sites in shopping centres such as the Jervis, is entirely out of keeping with the surroundings in Grafton Street.
"Where retail design is concerned," says Niall McCullough, "it seems inevitable that we must go for the lowest common denominator. I think the problem stems from a lack of independent specialist shops."
This is an opinion with which Derek Tynan concurs, observing: "We don't have the top end of British shopping, we only have the massmarket retailers, so all the shops look the same."
And while multiples from across the Irish Sea now have a powerful presence here, their equivalents in this State show no more interest in offering consumers an attractive environment in which to shop. The exterior and interior design of local chains such as Dunnes Stores, Penneys and Roches Stores shows the same dependence on corporate branding and removable fittings.
When talking to Irish architects about retail design, they all struggle to find more than a handful of outlets opened in recent years that could be considered to possess any aesthetic merit.
Retail planning guidelines produced for the Department of the Environment forecast that a further 7.8 million square feet of retail space is likely to be developed in Ireland over the next decade. The expectation is that this will be of the same poor quality as that already built during the past 10 years.
Tomorrow: Pavement life and Plateglass; the fashionable look of Ireland's new restaurants and bars