The Fitzpatrick report has been sharply criticised by the chairwoman of the Council of the West, Ms Marion Harkin, as an attempt to "impose an urban solution to a rural problem."
She said the consultants had made a fundamental mistake in opting to focus on developing specific towns, rather than taking an "even spread" approach to rural development. She said this would not work in a region which was 68 per cent rural.
"This document would seem to suggest that urban areas grow because they are urban, but in fact they grow because jobs and investment are directed towards them, and this then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy," Ms Harkin said.
She said the Council of the West, a voluntary lobby group, did not disagree with proposals to develop towns, but said the report had failed to look at possibilities for growth in rural areas.
Rural areas would not grow simply because urban areas close to them were expanding, she said. This was evident from the fact that a number of small rural primary schools located near growing towns were currently in danger of closing.
She said there was a need to look at the possibilities offered by "rural-friendly industries" such as fish processing, agriculture and tourism. Small-scale food production and organic farming were also important options. Those industries had not been dealt with in the report, but simply "tagged on". There was an urgent need to develop tourism infrastructure in the west.
Ms Harkin said she supported a proposal to upgrade the Institute of Technology in Sligo to university status. The council backed the need for centres of excellence in research, but there was also a need to drive rural development.
She said the myth that inward investment projects were not suited to rural areas had to be challenged. The vast majority of IDA-backed companies set up in recent years involved fewer than 100 jobs and could have gone to small towns.
The Fitzpatrick report will be presented to a meeting of the Border Regional Authority tomorrow. Mr Jimmy Devins, a member of the authority who is also chairman of the governing body of the Sligo Institute of Technology, said he hoped the Government would act on its recommendations.
Mr Devins said developing Sligo as a city would be a boost to the whole north-west and people should not take a "parochial" view of the proposal.
Concern has been expressed, however, that the £8.4 billion price tag attached to the plan is excessive and means it will never be implemented. Some sources said it represented more of a "wish list" than a realistic plan.