The Midland Regional Authority will meet in private today to discuss the draft report on regional development prepared by Fitzpatrick and Associates. This makes recommendations on how to bring balanced development to the State.
The meeting will be held amid concerns about the leaking of part of the document, which suggests that the Government should make £21 billion available to spend on major infrastructural projects up to 2006.
An elected member of the Midland Regional Authority said yesterday the publicity generated by the leak could be seen as "sabotage" because so many vested interests were involved.
"This is only a draft document which is going to be discussed by all the regional authorities over the next few days, and the views of the authorities will be forwarded to a steering group which meets on March 23rd to get an overview of what is happening," said the councillor, who did not wish to be named.
Mr James Stone, director of the authority, said the meeting would be the beginning of a process which would allow various authorities to decide on the development of their regions in the overall framework of development up to 2006.
"The whole consultation process has to be worked through, and I expect it will be early next month before the document will be ready for formal publication."
He agreed that the meeting will be examining one of the recommendations in the draft which targets Athlone as a major growth centre.
"Towns like Athlone and Sligo have more or less selected themselves because of the way they are growing and they will grow anyway.
"What we are trying to do is to harness that growth for the benefit of this region and what we must also do is ensure that there are resources for other large towns in the regions like Tullamore, Portlaoise, Mullingar and Longford."
The leaked report suggests that Athlone should be allowed to grow from 20,000 people to 50,000 and recommends the upgrading of its institute of technology to university status.
It also recommends major investment in business parks and the upgrading of road, rail and telecommunications facilities.
However, some of the members of the Midland Regional Authority believe Athlone is not the best-located centre in the region to drive development because of its proximity to Galway and because it is not in the centre of the midlands.