For Waterford the route of the new highway to Dublin was largely immaterial. As long as there was a high grade dual carriageway connecting the city and the port with the capital city, expansion was certain.

However, for the towns and villages along the way, the route selected was of paramount importance. In discounting the options to run the proposed road through Durrow, Co Laois, to the west, or to link up with the N11 to the east, the National Roads Authority has dashed the hopes of developers there.

But it is still all-to-play-for in terms of Kilkenny and Carlow. The NRA insists that a decision on whether the route will bypass Carlow town to the east or the west is still some way off. A bypass of Carlow to the east would effectively kill off Kilkenny's chance of benefitting in any way benefit from the new highway, while a by-pass to the west of Carlow - or particularly the northwest - has been described as a "disaster" for the town and the county.

Coming south from Dublin, the M9 motorway ends at Kilcullen "and the road from Kilcullen is a little bit of a disaster," according to Harry Sothern of Sothern Auctioneers, in Carlow.

"Traffic is nose-to-tail every day," he said. Seventy per cent of all traffic between Dublin and Waterford use this route and while a bypass for Carlow is desperately needed, a complete new road would be a godsend, according to Mr Sothern.

"There is a new 60-acre business park in the town and people there are going to want to get out to Dublin and Waterford port. The road would facilitate that." Already the town is developing as a commuter base for some people working in Dublin but he believes that the business park would allow many of them to remain in the town for their work.

The town itself is "flying," he says, adding that there "are 1,200 to 1,400 houses planned for Carlow with a commercial redevelopment of the old mart site to feature a new Tesco superstore as an anchor tenant.

However, Gerry Dunne, of the Carlow Chamber of Commerce, said that if the bypass of Carlow was to go to the west of the town it would be "an outright disaster." He claimed it would result in drawing investment away from Carlow and towards Co Laois.

In Kilkenny the local agents are confident that the new N9/ M9 will pass close to Paulstown, a move which auctioneer Tom Nolan says would "put Newlands Cross only one hour from Kilkenny with obvious development potential for the town". Seamus Callanan of Callanan Auctioneers agrees that the commercial possibilities brought by the new highway are exciting and would result in "opening up huge possibilities for Kilkenny which has always been the poor relation of industrial development".