The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, is attending a ceremony this afternoon to set the foundation stone for a new €2 billion town at Adamstown, west Dublin.
Adamstown, Ireland's first Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), is being built on a 500-acre site along the Dublin-Kildare railway line. It will eventually be home to over 20,000 people.
Mr Ahern said: "This development is historic. Not only is Adamstown the first, it is also the largest Strategic Development Zone approved in the State. It will result in the creation of a sustainable community of more than 10,000 homes, including 1,500 social and affordable units, to be phased over 10-plus years."
Three primary schools, a secondary school, crèche places for 1,400, shopping centres, a leisure club with swimming pool and a train station are planned for the scheme.
It has been promised that the development will have access to the latest and most advanced broadband technology and telecommunications infrastructure available. An outer ring road will link Adamstown with the N4 and N7, and two bus corridors will be created.
SDZs were established three years ago to speed up the building of new homes in response to the Dublin population boom.
Critics note that Adamstown is the only one that has actually achieved planning approval stage allowing construction. Another awaits approval and the third has yet to present its approved development plan.
The Green Party has called on the Taoiseach to provide "cast-iron" guarantees on public transport and the early opening of schools.
Dublin Mid-West TD Mr Paul Gogarty said the plan was "doomed to failure" without proper investment.
"The Taoiseach is today making one of his rare visits to Lucan to attend the official stone-laying ceremony of the Adamstown plan. As usual there will be plenty of hob-nobbing and back-slapping. But amidst all of this camaraderie will be one sobering fact: the Government has not provided the resources to ensure that Adamstown works," he said.
"We achieved some of what we were looking for, but the rest is down to the Government. When it comes to schools, or indeed the rail service, the Government has been found lacking," Mr Gogarty said.
Mr Gogarty noted the Taoiseach's admission in the Dáil last week that the M50 motorway would be congested even after it was upgraded.
"Much of that traffic will be coming from Adamstown. Unless the investment is put into a public transport alternative, the whole project will collapse in on itself."
The Green Party TD also expressed concern that the Adamstown project had been approved without an Environmental Impact Statement.
The Labour Party mayor for South Dublin, Mr Robert Dowds, said local communities had been understandably sceptical about the development.
They had seen the "dreadful effects" of many development decisions of the Fianna Fáil-led county councils in the 1980s and early 1990s where planners' advice was "thrown out the window" on many occasions, he said.
He said the development of Adamstown was being planned sensibly and would be different. However, he also reminded the Taoiseach of the importance of ensuring the promised public transport links were put in place.