County councils were calling on the Government to begin to implement the National Spatial Strategy lest it end up as a brochure on a shelf, a spokesman said.
Too much of the analysis on the strategy was taken up with the Dublin commuter belt, while rural Ireland was left behind, Cllr John Egan, chairman of the General Council of County Councils,said yesterday in advance of the GCCC conference this weekend on housing.
The Government's National Spatial Strategy "must be given teeth" or it would end up as the most expensive consultancy exercise in the history of the State, he said.
Some 400 councillors will meet in Nenagh tonight to consider the new blueprint for housing and development throughout the State.
"We have had the announcements. We have had the launches. We need action now and the best place to start is in rural Ireland where communities are imploding before our eyes," Cllr Egan said.
"Dublin's problems are ones of over-development. Where the Government needs to concentrate its resources is on the rural areas of Munster, Connacht, Ulster and the midlands - the sort of places that never get mentioned on AA Roadwatch."
Already moves by organisations such as An Post indicated a reversal of what was intended for rural areas in the spatial strategy, Mr Liam Kenny, director of the GCCC, said.