On several occasions in 1997 Garret FitzGerald wrote in this column about Luas, Dublin's light-rail tram system.
I argued that because of the volume of traffic that would be generated by the proposed line from Stillorgan (and eventually from Bray) to Stephen's Green and onwards towards the airport, it should be designed and built as a full-fledged metro (i.e. underground) rail system through the city centre rather than as an on-street tram.
I based this argument on official traffic projections made in the early 1990s which I modified to allow for the implications of the Celtic Tiger.
In early 1997 I met the consultants working on the scheme, whose team, most unfortunately, included no economist.
To my absolute astonishment I found that they had taken no account whatever of the Celtic Tiger, but were still publishing - and also using for their planning purposes - traffic estimates based on totally out-of-date data that had been prepared in 1991. This was based, as I recall, on the second-last census of population.
The consultants were unaware that the growth rates of employment and of cars in Dublin since 1991 had been 2.3 times greater than the increases projected six years earlier.
Taking that into account any attempt to cater for eventual demand on this route with trams, even operating at very high frequencies, was going to fail.
In addition, continuing it on-street to O'Connell Street would greatly congest the difficult Dawson Street/Nassau Street corner and the narrow street between Trinity College and the Bank of Ireland - the only south/north street between Westland Row and Christ Church Cathedral.
Dublin Bus tells me that two-thirds of all its buses run through College Green, and it is greatly concerned at the likely impact of Luas on the bulk of its city services.
In 1997 there was immediate strong opposition to my suggestion that the Luas project should be reviewed in the light of these facts.
However, after that year's election, the PDs, returning to government after five years' absence, grasped the half of my argument about congestion in the city centre. Yet they apparently did not grasp the even more crucial element of my case about traffic volumes.
As a result the new government was then persuaded to adopt a short-sighted, half-measure by stopping the Luas tram at Stephen's Green instead of converting it into a metro running in a tunnel from just south of Ranelagh and onwards through the city centre.
As I predicted, Luas traffic volumes have already been much higher than planned.
Indeed, despite the termination of the tram service at Stephen's Green, there have from the outset been problems of capacity shortage at peak hours.
These have occurred both between Heuston and Connolly stations on the Red Line and between Dundrum and Stephen's Green on the Green Line.
At this stage, and because the line has been stopped at Stephen's Green, this capacity problem can be and has promptly been met by adding a new short-distance tram on the Red Line, one that operates only between the two railway stations, and by adding an extra peak-hour service on the Green Line.
However given the huge volume of residential building under way and planned for the foothills of the Dublin Mountains above Stillorgan, the Luas tram, even with much increased frequencies, will not prove capable of coping indefinitely with the traffic volume on this route.
This will be especially so after it is linked at Stephen's Green to a metro running through the city centre to the airport and beyond.
A decision has recently been announced to build a metro from Swords and the airport to Stephen's Green. This, however, will stop at that point instead of continuing as had originally been intended along the present Luas Green Line to Stillorgan and beyond.
Halting it at Stephen's Green means that for years ahead passengers between south Dublin and the airport will have to change and lug their bags between two different levels at Stephen's Green station.
Henry Street shoppers will have to do the same with their purchases.
Instead of taking the opportunity to create now a through metro service between south Dublin, O'Connell Street and the airport, the current plans involve spending money on the construction of two almost parallel Luas and metro lines between Stephen's Green and O'Connell Street.
However, duplicating the new metro between Stephen's Green and O'Connell Street by extending the over-ground Luas even further into the city will disrupt the whole south city centre for several years and, when completed, will slow the passage of two-thirds of our city bus services.