Balanced regional development was one of the stated objectives of the National Development Plan 2000-2006, just as it had been since time immemorial. Seven years on, with billions of euro spent, it remains as far away as ever.
In what amounted to putting the cart before the horse, the NDP was adopted three years before ministers agreed on a framework for the development of nine "gateways" and nine "hubs" under the 2002 National Spatial Strategy.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, in his preface to the NSS - finally published in November 2002 - promised that the Government "will ensure that its own policies are implemented in a manner that is consistent with the National Spatial Strategy".
That didn't happen. Notoriously, just 12 months after the spatial strategy was published, then minister for finance Charlie McCreevy announced plans to relocate 10,300 public servants from Dublin to 53 locations in 25 counties.
The cities and towns designated in the NSS were largely ignored.
Cork city was totally overlooked; instead, 920 public servants were to be dispersed to Clonakilty, Kanturk, Macroom, Mallow, Mitchelstown and Youghal.
The asset value of Cork city, with all of its amenities, was simply not recognised by the Cabinet sub-committee that drew up the decentralisation programme - consisting of Ahern, McCreevy, Mary Harney and Martin Cullen.
Parish-pump politics triumphed, just as it did over previous efforts to achieve balanced regional development - which is exactly what Noel Dempsey, then minister for the environment, had warned might happen in September 2001.
As he said, the 1960s Buchanan regional development plan had "died a shameful death [ because] local interests were put first . . . with disastrous consequences for the country as a whole and for the west and midlands in particular".
More than five years later, a report by Indecon economic consultants found that the challenges facing the hydra-headed midlands "gateway" of Athlone, Tullamore and Mullingar are very large, due to a continued absence of "critical mass".
Population, employment and infrastructure were all said to be deficient. And the reason is simple - the Government isn't really prepared to invest the significant resources required to develop alternative growth centres outside Dublin.
As the 2006 Census confirmed, the Greater Dublin area (including Meath, Kildare and Wicklow) now accounts for 40 per cent of the State's population - and much more, if all the dormitories within its 100km commuter belt are included.
In this context, balanced regional development is still a political pipe-dream.