As the chairman of An Bord Pleanála said on Wednesday, anyone driving around Ireland can see for themselves how commercial development is clustering around new motorway interchanges. But John O'Connor rightly warned that if hotels, business parks and retail warehouses continue to spring up in such locations, the value of the vast public investment being made in the national roads programme would be written off within 10 years.
The reason, quite simply, is that developments of this type are significant generators of local traffic, and this clashes with the declared purpose of new motorways - to facilitate safe and efficient transport between Dublin and other urban centres. As Mr O'Connor suggested, this objective is being submerged in favour of local considerations, which have more to do with facilitating schemes which would provide a steady stream of rates revenue.
He cited the M50 as an "extreme example" of the phenomenon of "piggy-backing" on national road schemes. This motorway was originally conceived as a bypass of Dublin for national traffic, but so much development was permitted in its corridor that it has become the crooked spine of a new "edge city" on the outskirts of the capital. As a result of lax planning policies that were at the very least myopic and at worst deeply corrupt, the M50 has become a byword for traffic congestion on a massive scale. Thousands of trucks have yet to be added to this nightmare and, even after spending €1.2 billion on upgrading the motorway, it will still be clogged.
It is ironic that An Bord Pleanála's chairman delivered his "wake-up call for local authorities" to avoid making similar mistakes on other motorways on the same day as Fingal County Council decided to grant permission to the Swedish furniture giant Ikea for a superstore of 30,000 square metres at the north end of Ballymun, just off the M50. And although the council attached 29 conditions, many of them designed to deal with traffic issues, there can be little doubt that the opening of such a large furniture outlet at this location in 2008 would add immeasurably to congestion. The National Roads Authority, which recently issued recommendations against promoting "piggy-back" commercial developments on new motorways, is among those who are seriously sceptical about the Ikea plan.
Undoubtedly, several parties will appeal Fingal's decision to An Bord Pleanála, so it will be up to the board to make a final decision on whether this store - which would be Ireland's largest - will be allowed to go ahead. Given what its chairman had to say last Wednesday, planning permission cannot be taken for granted.