Consultants preparing a development strategy for the State's better-off regions are to revise their approach following an angry reaction to their proposals for the south-east.
Members of the South East Regional Authority have expressed outrage that the draft development plan for the region suggests that Kilkenny, Clonmel, Carlow and Wexford are not big enough to attract large-scale industry.
They also criticise the Government's "insulting" approach to the issue, claiming it is undemocratic and does not give the various regional authorities enough time to have their concerns addressed.
At the heart of SERA's unease is the fact that the Government is preparing just two main strategies to maximise the benefits of EU structural funding over the next seven years, one for the 13-county Objective One region and the other for the rest of the State.
As a result, the south-east is included in a single "Southern and Eastern Region" which stretches from Drogheda to west Cork and includes the cities of Dublin, Cork and Limerick.
The south-east's specific concerns, it is claimed, are being overloooked in favour of the competing interests of Dublin and other areas in this new regional structure.
The draft development plan for the Southern and Eastern Region drawn up by economic consultants Fitzpatrick Associates was presented to SERA in Waterford 10 days ago and drew a hostile response.
Members particularly objected to the proposed strategy for the "south-east urban network outside Waterford city", which states that "the towns of Carlow, Clonmel, Kilkenny and Wexford do not have the scale to attract much of the industrial activity currently being located in Dublin, Cork and Limerick".
The study says Kilkenny and the large towns of the south-east "should seek to attract industries that are more footloose than some of the hi-tech sectors which currently favour the largest cities, yet seek a quality of environment that each of these towns can offer. Such industries may include food-processing and teleservicing."
A Kilkenny Fianna Fail councillor, Mr Jimmy Brett, said SERA had worked very hard to establish a regional identity for the south-east. Now it was being "swamped into a much bigger quasi-region".
He said Seagate had not closed because it was in Clonmel, and the same was true of other industries in the region.
"We're being told we have to attract `footloose industries'. What are they?" he asked.
Mr Jonathan Blackwell, a member of the consultancy team, said existing large-scale sectors, such as the pharmaceutical and software industries, tended to "cluster" around the same centres.
By "footloose" the consultants had meant that large towns in the south-east should seek to attract sectors which were "less sensitive to clustering". However, he agreed to remove the suggestion that the towns concerned could not attract large-scale industry after other members of the authority said they were "horrified" to see it in the report.
SERA members echoed the concerns raised by other regional authorities about the emphasis on the need for major urban centres to act as the engine for overall economic growth. They claimed smaller towns and rural areas would lose out.
The draft plan for the southern and eastern region says Ireland's recent economic growth is an "urban-led phenomenon", and this was unlikely to change.
It argues that Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Waterford should be developed as the four major growth centres of the region.
However, that is only the first of six separate strategies proposed in the plan. The second deals with Kilkenny, Clonmel, Carlow and Wexford, and the third with "lower order" towns and rural areas.
The fourth strategy aims to tackle the problem of disadvantaged rural areas; the fifth deals with west Cork, the only "remote area" of the region; and the sixth with the coastal zone, where much of the region's economic activity is located.
The final plan is due to be approved by tomorrow. Mr Brett said the document would be the blueprint for south-east development for the next seven years and he criticised the way it was being "guillotined" without room for further debate.
Another SERA member, Mr Micheal O Cinneide of the Southern Regional Fisheries Commission, said the manner in which the authority was being asked to deal with the plan was "a joke and an insult".