Uranium mining, a nuclear power plant, energy shortages and a creaking infrastructure were among the fears and predictions for Ireland in 2000, as seen from the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Ireland in the Year 2000, a series of think-tanks planned by An Foras Forbartha - remember that? - in 1979, was an attempt to envisage how the Republic would look on the dawn of the third millennium.
Surprisingly, think-tank reports don't go in for predictions of the population scurrying about in buggies designed by Sir Clive Sinclair - remember him? - but perhaps, considering the traffic gridlock, they should have done.
What was predicted was "an island of perhaps six million people", whose chief economic constraint was energy, with alternative energy sources being developed in the west of Ireland. Because of the abundance of "natural energy" such as wind and wave power, hopes were expressed that the west could become a hub of industrial activity.
To judge by the think-tank reports, the prevailing attitude was that "industrial development" and "economic development" were virtually interchangeable expressions. But even from the late 1970s forecasters were warning that the country's roads and telecommunications needed upgrading if "any development" was to take place.
In February, 1980 a think-tank held at Kilkea Castle was very concerned about our ability to provide employment in 2000. A rising population would mean that entrants to the job market would outnumber those retiring by two to one. "This raises a number of issues . . . about the concept of work itself", the think-tank concluded.
Reports also expressed fears that the future could bring uranium mining and the construction of a nuclear power station. And there could be problems involving other environmental issues such as an emphasis on chemical or pharmaceutical industries which, it was felt, the Europeans had experience with but which the Republic may be forced to embark upon "without appreciation of their longer term environmental consequences".
By the early 1980s the annual think-tank was reporting that the formation of a national development plan was a "prerequisite for growth". The 1981 report says the cost of the social and physical infrastructure could be as high as £6 billion. The report of the 1982 think-tank concludes "there are no motorway class roads in Ireland at all.
"Many feel that the economic prosperity experienced between 1960 and 1980 is over and that a decline is more likely than an improvement," said Mr Padraig McGowan of the Central Bank in his address to the think-tank in 1982. Mr McGowan suggested that, for the future, all rents charged by housing authorities "should be adjusted to reflect the true economic cost incurred by the local authorities in providing the accommodation".
The development of satellite television was identified by the IDA in 1982 as one of the areas where growth might be found. Satellite television was predicted to develop in the second half of the 1980s, first in Germany and France, then spreading to the rest of Europe. However, it was predicted that "full employment in market type work can not be guaranteed by anybody and is not a realistic objective in the medium term".
By 1985 the think-tank was reporting the prospect of "national decline, increasing alienation and a faltering government system".
But a conclusion that the think-tanks got it all wrong would itself be an error. In many respects what it forecast has an uncannily familiar ring to it.
The report of the February 1980 think-tank held in Kilkea Castle calls for investment in infrastructure and warns about the need for change in the planning process to be achieved which would allow infrastructural developments to proceed with minimum delays.
The reports also stress the need to deal with environmental protection. But they acknowledge that new initiatives are useless, unless implemented at all levels of Government planning.
As one commentator put it in 1981, "the piggeries which polluted Lough Sheelin were developed with State-aid".
Tim O'Brien can be contacted at tobrien@irish-times.ie