The future of the national theatre has been debated for years. Will the wait be worth it, asks Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

The new Abbey Theatre, if we are to believe the official spin, will be "a signature development, representative of a national theatre in the 21st century", located in a civic setting and with much improved facilities compared to the grim, barely functional box in which it has been operating for 40 years.

It's to include significantly enlarged auditoriums for the Abbey and Peacock, a new multi-purpose space, improved public areas, a restaurant and bar, universal access for patrons and artists and "best practice theatre production facilities" as well as a theatre archive and education "outreach facility".

According to Arts Minister John O'Donoghue, the new Abbey will be located in an "appropriate civic setting" - the Custom House Docks site - where it would "form part of the overall urban regeneration represented by the O'Connell Street Integrated Area Plan and North East Inner City IAP".

The idea that relocating the Abbey to the virtually enclosed environment of the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) would contribute to the regeneration of O'Connell Street is clearly a fatuous one. If this was really one of the objectives, it would be better located on the capital's main thoroughfare.

That was one of the options seriously considered when it looked as if the old Carlton Cinema site would be available. But this highly desirable outcome was ruled out because of a protracted legal challenge to Dublin City Council's compulsory purchase order for the Carlton and adjoining properties.

HAVING TOYED WITH the patently ludicrous idea of relocating the Abbey to the Coláiste Mhuire site on the north side of Parnell Square, the Government plumped for the Custom House Docks - after it was suggested to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in December 2004 by billionaire financier Dermot Desmond.

Mr Desmond had his own ambitious scheme to build an 17-storey "ecosphere" in the middle of George's Dock, with an underground link to Stack A, the early 19th-century warehouse just east of the dock basin. However, he ultimately failed to win Government support for this "destination tourism" project.

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) later invested some €44 million in the renovation of Stack A, to transform it into a "world-class retail, restaurant and cultural centre". But most of its 13,000 sq metres (140,000 sq ft) of space is largely as eerily vacant as the ghost ship Mary Celeste.

This would never have happened if the original 1987 plan to turn it into the Irish Museum of Modern Art had been realised. But that, too, bit the dust after Anthony Cronin persuaded then Taoiseach Charles Haughey that Imma should instead be housed in the relatively remote Royal Hospital, Kilmainham.

The provision of a cultural use in Stack A would have triggered a levy of 50 pence (63 cent) per square foot on all of the office space in the IFSC to support it. This substantial pot of revenue was sacrificed as a result of the Imma move, but presumably it can be resuscitated if the Abbey Theatre materialises there.

One crucial aspect of the Government's decision on the Abbey is that the new theatre must be levered by a public-private partnership (PPP). In other words, the risks associated with the €150 million-plus project would be borne by a private developer - with the costs passed on to taxpayers in the long term.

Another crucial aspect is that much of the precious waterbody in George's Dock would be consumed by the theatre complex, as there simply isn't enough space on the west side of the dock to accommodate a building which is projected to have a footprint of around 4,500 sq metres (48,440 sq ft).

Although the depth of water in the dock was substantially reduced to provide a firm footing for the platform to accommodate Speigeltent, among other attractions, the Abbey would be in a different class altogether - a permanent structure that would not permit any second thoughts.

There is quite a bit of left-over space west of George's Dock, which is currently occupied by a rather dull Stonehenge-style arrangement of standing stones. However, it is unclear at this stage how much of the theatre complex will stand on this site and how much of it will stand in the dock basin.

There is to be an international architectural competition for the Abbey project - something that the Office of Public Works (OPW) was canvassing as long ago as September 2005. But it is clear that there was a lot of inter-departmental discussions before Mr O'Donoghue finally announced it a year later. "I am confident that the international competition will attract designs that will ensure Ireland will have a national theatre to rival any theatre in the world," he said last September. "The new Abbey Theatre at George's Dock provides us with a setting, stage and arena worthy of that global pre-eminence."

One of the models being mentioned is the new Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel for a site on the Mississippi River. It was the brainchild of Joe Dowling - a former artistic director of the Abbey - and the smallest of its three theatres is named in his honour.

John McLaughlin, the DDDA's director of architecture, says the Guthrie project shows that it's possible to minimise the footprint of a theatre complex by "stacking" it vertically. So he doesn't believe the new Abbey necessarily needs to be a "groundscraper" that would consume George's Dock.

That remains to be seen. The speculation is that at least half, and possibly as much as two-thirds, of the dock basin would disappear under the building. It all depends on the brief for next spring's competition, which is now being drafted by the OPW, and the response by architects at home and abroad.

The idea of stacking the Abbey is not new. Six years ago, Dublin architects McCullough and Mulvin, who were responsible for the theatre's portico - added in 1988 - proposed that it should be vertically restructured on the existing site. Indeed, this solution was accepted by the Government in 2002.

THE OPTION OF acquiring adjacent properties was also considered, not least because it would have given the Abbey a landmark frontage on the Liffey, but there were fears that a king's ransom would have to be paid. Even when the key corner building came up for sale, the OPW baulked at buying it.

The 2002 decision to rebuild the theatre on its existing site was made after its then artistic director, Ben Barnes, provoked the wrath of Bertie Ahern by entertaining an invitation from the DDDA to relocate to the Grand Canal Docks; it was made clear then that the Abbey had to remain on the northside.

The theatre's future has now been under active discussion for the past five or six years. But does it make sense to rush into George's Dock, at the expense of all but eliminating it, rather than wait for the Carlton site to become available? That would still be the best site of all - and, fortuitously, it is also north of the river.