Charlie McCreevy made it clear yesterday that if he had had his way, he would have given no details of the content of the National Development Plan until it had been finalised in late September or early October. Asked at a press conference yesterday if he would consider publishing the detailed draft spending proposals which have already been drawn up, the Minister for Finance replied cheerfully: "Why would I?"

He confirmed, as a result of "some comment in the papers", that the Government now proposed to spend £38 billion on the National Development Plan. The figure has thus risen from the £33.4 billion proposed in a draft memorandum for Government of just three weeks ago.

Mr McCreevy said yesterday there had been more consultation on this plan than on the two previous ones, and he had no intention of publishing his proposals to allow for wider public debate. His Department had held bilateral meetings with other Government Departments to discuss it, he said, and had widely consulted with other bodies. He would not publish the proposals now to allow for a public debate, as the process of drawing up the plan had to come to an end some time.

"It is believed in certain quarters that we have endless consultation and seminars and never make a decision. We've had consultations, we've taken everything into account."

The decisions to be made in the next few months will affect the shape of the State for a long time to come. As economic growth races ahead, key decisions are to be made on how to develop roads, railways, housing, workers' skills, less prosperous regions, industry and all areas of economic infrastructure.

The Government has not yet decided which specific projects will be funded, but each spending department now has a very clear idea of what it wants the money to be spent on. There will be a number of central issues argued out. In private, of course.

Perhaps the most central issue is whether to try to halt Dublin's rapid expansion a number of urban growth areas - new cities and large towns - elsewhere in the State. The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) advocated this in a report earlier this year, saying that Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Letterkenny, Limerick and Galway could be developed into large regional centres, ultimately attracting investment and people away from the east coast.

However, this idea - called a "nodal strategy" by the ESRI as it involves "nodes" of population and development around the State - is not uncritically accepted by those campaigning for regional development. Many fear that this nodal strategy will develop a small number of towns and cities while still leaving rural areas untouched. When the Minister of State responsible for the Gaeltacht and the Islands, Mr Eamonn O'Cuiv, called yesterday for "balanced regional development" it was this fear he was referring to.

The chairwoman of the Council for the West, Ms Marian Harkin, said yesterday that whatever development is planned for the west must take account of the fact that the region is more than 75 per cent rural. "We can't impose urban solutions on rural problems. That does not mean there should not be urban centres. But we should not think we will solve the problems by building two cities and two or three urban centres."

The Department of Finance shares the caution. In its memo of three weeks ago it says the Minister will only formulate proposals on the matter "having considered departmental observations on the matter. The strategy must, in any event, recognise that certain types of foreign direct investment (FDI) will inevitably be attracted only to larger urban centres. It must also recognise that a fully-fledged spatial strategy for Ireland will take longer to prepare than the time constraints of the NDP permit."

THIS fundamental decision on geographically rebalancing economic activity in the State will dictate the decisions on many of the other infrastructural proposals. Some £4 billion is to be allocated to national roads, for example, "to provide improved transport links between cities and towns in their surrounding hinterland to facilitate balanced regional and rural development", says the memo.

But between which cities and towns? The Tanaiste, Ms Harney, talked at her party conference in April of a major road from Donegal to Kerry, linking the entire western region to Shannon Airport and making it easier to bring goods and people the length of the island.

However, the memo talks in more conservative terms of completing the National Roads Authority priorities, upgrading certain national primary routes as well as "general network improvement work". It does say, however, that further expenditure on roads through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) may be considered in the future.

The mainline rail provisions also seem unexciting. While £500 million has been provisionally allocated to this, a very substantial amount will go to necessary and overdue safety work. The rest is to go to improvements on existing lines from Dublin to Cork, Limerick, Belfast and Galway.

In fact much of the improvement work on the Belfast line has been carried out already. The proposals as they stand contain no imaginative development of the rail network, merely an improvement of what is already there. There is no plan to start a passenger service from Limerick to Galway or to upgrade regional lines that do not pass through Dublin.

The detail of other spending plans will be eagerly awaited by interest groups, but they will not get a chance to comment on the figures until the plan is complete. The £940 million allocated in the draft memo for social disadvantage appears to be a substantial increase, but it will not be known how this increase has been achieved until the plan has been sent to Brussels.

The debate about funding the Luas Dublin light rail system which aroused passionate interest from many interest groups last year is now to be conducted in secret as well. Three weeks ago the plan was to allocate no money to build the controversial underground section of the system. Now it appears there is to be money for it.

The Department of Finance has apparently told the Department of Public Enterprise it is very concerned about the escalation in the cost of Luas. However, the Government intended that this entire debate, of great interest to the public who will use and pay for the building of Luas, would be conducted in secret.

Then there is the issue of a rail link from Dublin city to the airport. The ESRI suggested the Dublin-Belfast railway line should include a stop at Dublin Airport. There is also a proposal that the Luas line to Ballymun be extended to the airport, and another that a new rail link be built, ending at the proposed new Spencer Dock development. There is to be no broad public discussion on these proposals. The Department of Finance draft simply says the possibility of a rail link to the airport is being examined.

Such matters, Mr McCreevy suggested yesterday, are not for the rough-and-tumble of general public discourse and media comment. Emphasising again the amount of consultation he and his Department had engaged in with his fellow Ministers and other bodies he said: "We have elections every couple of years, and we've elected politicians and they elect governments and they make decisions."