The National Development Plan, which is to be announced by Government within weeks should make good reading, especially if one's interest is outside Dublin.
This year the plan is being drawn from the bottom up, with submissions from the regional authorities, the assembly of regional authorities, the ESRI and the social partners, before the Government outlines its spending plans for the next six years.
What is to emerge should be a well-designed plan to maintain the economic growth of recent times, while ensuring that some of that growth spreads out to the regions.
Yesterday at the Royal Town Planning Institute's conference on regional planning in the Shelbourne Hotel, those regions were defined loosely as "anywhere other than Dublin". And there is some merit in this attitude. Dublin, one could argue, has been overburdened with its share of economic prosperity - to the point of strangulation.
There is an expectation that this time it is the regions' turn. And this time the State has at least £22 billion to spend. Possibly much more if the much-vaunted public private partnerships are to materialise, with private investment in public infrastructural projects such as Luas, motorways and telecommunications links.
Economic growth is to be fostered in regional centres such as Athlone, Sligo and Waterford as well as lesser centres at Tralee, Letterkenny and Castlebar. In Northern Ireland, too, the plan for spatial development is well advanced, with two major centres at Derry - serving a dual purpose as it will be a centre for the Republic's north-west region also - and Belfast. A number of interregional developments are also planned for energy provision, transport and tourism. Some of these will be set up under the Belfast Agreement.
In the Republic the regions are waiting. In this newspaper on Wednesday Chris Dooley reported from Waterford on business in that region determined "to present a united front in lobbying for major investment in the region". Today Theresa Judge writes from the north-west on the community demanding investment in broadband communications links to allow it to attract industries to the area.
Yet there is mounting frustration in Government circles that large infrastructural projects such as the provision of roads, development planning, the regeneration of Ballymun, the extension of the gas grid, electricity network, even wind generation, are held up by objections.
At a recent address to the Irish Management Institute, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, indicated his frustration that major infra structural projects on which the continued prosperity of the State depends can be held up by individual objections, sometimes for more than a year.
The Minister for Environment and Local Government, Mr Dempsey, has targeted planning for a complete overhaul, and a Bill which has been two years in the making is expected shortly.
However, informed sources say any attempt to interfere with constitutional rights will almost certainly be appealed to the Supreme Court. In drafting new legislation which allows major projects to proceed and still protects the individual's rights, the Government has a difficulty which could slow the pace of regional development considerably.