Little did Dublin County Council's planners know that the draft county development plan they produced in 1991 would become a "road map" for bribery and corruption on a scale which has surprised even seasoned observers.
Based on Frank Dunlop's evidence to the Flood tribunal yesterday, it is now abundantly clear that every contentious land rezoning decision made by the county council during the early 1990s involved illicit payments to a ring of key councillors.
As the lobbyist admitted, it was not just Quarryvale. At least a dozen other landowners, speculators or developers contributed large sums of money to his "war chest" or "stash of cash", into which he dipped when confronted by demands or requests for money.
In several cases, the amount of money paid out to secure particular rezonings - £5,000, £7,500 or £10,000 - was relatively small in the context of the gains made by the beneficiaries, but it was enough to swing the vote even where there was widespread local opposition.
Land that would have fetched no more than £3,000 an acre in agricultural use at the time was suddenly worth £60,000 an acre or even more - and all that was needed to bring about this extraordinary leap in values was a simple majority vote by the county council.
It would now appear that more than 25 councillors were "on the take". Some were paid to turn up for a crucial vote, others to stay away and one individual made so many demands for money that Mr Dunlop, the bagman, described him as "insatiable".
The democratic process - and the planning process itself - became perverted by bribery and corruption. What was previously thought of as a can of worms has now been revealed as a truckload of worms; it was simply the way business was done in Dublin County Council.
In some cases, the sums involved, £500 to £1,000, were so small they could be passed off as political contributions. Not so the huge wads of cash, amounting to between £10,000 and £25,000, which the most corrupt councillors demanded and received for their votes.
Against that background, what chance was there that the councillors involved would pay even the slightest attention to the advice of the professional planners or to the often well-argued submissions by local community groups opposing particular rezoning motions?
They were honest only to the extent that, once bought, they stayed bought, in Boss Croker's definition. Their statutory duty to have regard only to "the proper planning and development of the area" in making the county plan was suborned by ravenous greed.
The backhanders dished out by Mr Dunlop turned green fields into gold. Although he did not publicly identify the parcels of land involved, it is possible to deduce from the descriptions he gave to the tribunal where some of these holdings were located.
For example, the "intense opposition of a State entity" to a particular rezoning in north Co Dublin is obviously a reference to Aer Rianta's objections to the designation for industrial development of one or other of a number of holdings on the flight paths into Dublin Airport.
Throughout the process of making its last county development plan before it was replaced on January 1st, 1994, by three new local authorities, Dublin County Council rezoned some 3,000 acres of farmland for housing, commercial or industrial development.
In most cases, the rezonings were initiated by councillors at the behest of those who stood to gain the most and opposed by planners who sought to ensure the orderly development of Co Dublin. But the planners lost out to what we now know were dark forces.
The old county council's motto, "Beart do reir ar mBriathar", takes on a new twist in the light of the revelations now being made to the Flood tribunal. For the word and bond of the corrupt councillors were given repeatedly to vested interests in exchange for money.
Seven years ago, at the height of the rezoning frenzy, Ms Joan Burton, a former council member and then Minister of State for Social Welfare, made a speech in Co Westmeath in which she called on Fianna Fail and Fine Gael to come clean on the issue.
She referred to the unseemly sight of property developers and their agents "crowding the council's ante-chamber and gallery, ticking off lists of councillors as they arrive and vote for decisions that multiply at a stroke the value of lands they own or control".
Ms Burton said the public was "entitled to know from each and every councillor what campaign contributions, what hospitality and what assistance, direct or indirect . . . they or their parties received from these developers, landowners, associated builders and their agents".
She was sued for libel by no fewer than 42 of her one-time colleagues. Solicitors acting on their behalf insisted that there were "absolutely no grounds to suggest bribery or corruption in Dublin County Council", and called on her to apologise and retract her allegations.
They referred to "the distress and embarrassment caused to them, their families, friends and associates" and sought an affirmation that they had "always dealt with rezoning applications . . . with the utmost integrity and having regard only to appropriate planning criteria".
That canard has been well and truly laid to rest by Frank Dunlop's two days in the witness-box at the Flood tribunal.