IT is to be hoped that people will not be put off reading this book by the depressing cover and even more depressing title. Presumably the publishers' believe that the issue of development is so forbidding that only its most serious students should be allowed to read Peadar Kirby's work.

As an extra hurdle for the casual, or even mildly interested reader, there is no table of contents. You either pick up this book and stick with it to the end, or you turn to the next title on the shelf.

All of which is unfortunate, because the author addresses one of the major issues of the coming decade. The debate is still at the stage where people are arguing about what exactly development is. Peadar Kirby goes a long way towards suggesting definitions and where the debate is going, both internationally and within Ireland.

In underdeveloped countries, development issues have already entered the mainstream of political debate to a much greater extent than environmental concerns, which have tended to preoccupy the world's wealthier nations. A leading development theoretician, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, was elected president of Brazil in 1995.

Of course, development and environment are intimately linked. As our own President, Mrs Robinson, has pointed out, the debate about what constitutes "sustainable development" is not just a utilitarian one over how best to reduce poverty or allow poor countries to prosper without fouling up "our" world. It is also about creating a better world in every sense and doing it at a time when the politics of consumer societies is becoming increasingly ethics resistant.

Mrs Robinson is one of the few Irish politicians to appreciate the significance of the issue. Her election was largely the achievement of those involved in development work in Ireland, the women's groups, community groups and other traditionally marginal people in our society.

That election marks their coming of age to an even greater degree than their involvement, as the "social pillar", in the new national agreement, Partnership 2000. If they do not yet have as influential a say in negotiations as trade unionists, farmers and business interests, that day cannot be far off if we are to build a genuinely "inclusive" society.

Peadar Kirby not only provides a good theoretical basis for the development debate in Ireland, but also explains why it is so important for us. In the process he questions whether Ireland is really a "developed" country in a more fundamental way than ever before.

We still have many of the characteristics of an underdeveloped economy. As well as having a high, and rising, proportion of the population living in comparative poverty, we depend for economic, growth on foreign capital and massive transfers of EU funds. Without the EU, and the safety valve of emigration, Kirby argues, we would not be able to live in the manner to which some of us have become accustomed.

In other words, the much vaunted "Celtic Tiger" of some economic commentators is living in large part on donated scraps rather than hunting for itself. By contrast, the Asian "tiger" economies were built on a more self reliant and state interventionist model.

It is in the nature of a book like this that it is more informative about problems than solutions. Whether a small country with a population of three million - on an island of only 4.5 million - can ever expect to find a truly independent route to development is highly questionable. But Kirby seems to believe we can do it. And, most refreshingly, he seems to believe the poor may be part of the solution, rather than the problem. {CORRECTION} 97012700030