The Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, has said he intends to relax the current ban on superstores to allow furniture giant Ikea locate in Ireland.
He said he planned to amend the current retail planning guidelines to allow for one-off superstores in designated urban regeneration areas, but ruled out an absolute lifting of the current cap on supermarket size to allow for out-of-town shopping centres.
The proposal will be of specific benefit to Ikea, which has identified a site in the Ballymun regeneration area for its first store in this country.
The company has previously said it will only locate in Ireland if it can build its standard-size store of 28,000 square metres. The cap on the size of retail developments, outlined in current retail planning guidelines, is 6,000 square metres.
The Irish Times reported last month that Ballymun Regeneration Ltd (the Dublin City Council-owned company behind the north side urban renewal project) had held talks with representatives of Ikea in relation to a site close to the M50, which was formally earmarked for a technology park.
Mr Roche told The Irish Times that there was "pent-up demand" among consumers with thousands of Irish people travelling to Ikea stores in England. "All you have to do is take a trip down the docks to see this. I know of a company in the midlands which is doing a delivery service," he said.
Mr Roche said that, rather than providing a one-off exemption to Ikea, he favoured a "tightly worded" change to the current guidelines. This would allow one-off single retail outlets to be created, but only in areas designated for urban regeneration.
He acknowledged that there was a genuine fear among smaller retailers about the development of out-of-town shopping centres, and said mixed retail outlets or shopping centres would be excluded from the proposed relaxation. However, there were major consumer and employment benefits in lifting the cap to allow a company like Ikea to set up in Ireland.
"The issue is getting the balance right," the Minister said. "At the same time, I don't want to open the door to the type of problems that were introduced [in other countries]."
Mr Roche said he had asked his officials to examine the implications of the limited relaxation. This was with a view to drawing up detailed proposals that he intended to bring before Cabinet in the coming months.
"There are issues related to traffic that have to be examined before a final decision can be made, " said Mr Roche..
Green Party TD Mr Eamon Ryan, however, said that Ireland was "already the most car-dependent country in the world".
"A giant Ikea store without the possibility of rail connections can only add to this problem," he said. "Furthermore, if the cap on retail outlet size were to be lifted, such a decision could lead to a situation where three or four megastores ... could dominate the retail business throughout Ireland."
Ikea: success based on low-cost flat-pack furniture
With 186 superstores in 31 countries worldwide, Ikea has been part of a retail revolution based on low cost flatpack furniture and household goods.
Its 76,000 staff served 310 million customers and generated sales of over €10 billion last year.
The Ikea catalogue, which lists the 10,000 items on sale in its stores, has the largest print run in the world at 130 million copies.
Its founder, Mr Ingvar Kamprad, is believed to be one of the richest men in the world, with a fortune some put at over €45 billion. The company has disputed this figure.
The success of the company, which started off as a small furniture retailer in rural post-war Sweden, is based on its invention of flat pack furniture in the 1950s, allowing it to dramatically reduce its costs.