Building a national conference centre in Dublin has been an official policy objective of Bord Failte and successive governments for the past 10 years. Now, after several false starts, a fully-formed plan to build this major civic facility is about to be adjudicated on.
Bord Failte's brief for the project called for a 2,000-seat auditorium and banqueting hall capable of seating the same number of diners. It was to be a landmark building of high architectural merit, a worthy 21st century addition to Dublin's stock of important public buildings.
The Spencer Dock developers headed by Treasury Holdings won the contract to build the conference centre in part because they had hired Mr Kevin Roche, the multiple award-winning Irish-born international architect, to design it. He was their trump card.
After emigrating to the US in 1948, Mr Roche established a highly successful practice, designing huge corporate and cultural buildings in his adopted country and elsewhere. But he had never built anything in Ireland and was genuinely delighted, even in his mid-70s, to be invited to do so. His scheme for the conference centre is certainly impressive. A large, stone-clad box with a tilted cylindrical atrium on the entrance front, it would rise to a height of 43 metres at parapet level on the south-western corner of the 51-acre Spencer Dock site, facing the Liffey.
However, its "landmark" quality has been all but set aside by the huge volume of development which would rise up behind and beside it. Most of the other 25 buildings to be erected on the site would be considerably taller; the central office tower would be more than twice as high.
Opinion among Dublin architects of what Mr Roche has produced is scathing. One called it "the March of the Triffids", while another said it was "the architectural equivalent of genetically-modified organisms - once released into the environment, it will pop up everywhere".
But there is also a great deal of respect for Mr Roche's achievements and some sympathy for the difficulties he faced in dealing with Spencer Dock. "Obviously, he came over to do the conference centre and then found himself bounced into doing all the other stuff," one architect said.
The developers insist that 5.5 million square feet of space is needed to subsidise the centre, which they believe would lose £6 million a year. And with the Government determined to insulate itself against exposure to such losses, they say this is the only way it can be funded.
The Government is not contributing a penny to the capital cost either, apart from approving the project for some £24 million in EU aid. But the conference centre would have to be completed by the end of next year if this money is to be "drawn down" - and that is now improbable.
Unless it can be fast-tracked, the building programme is 27 months. But with the budget up by £20 million to £104 million, mainly because it was felt that a large amount of additional exhibition space was needed to make it more viable, the EU funding is perhaps less significant.
The developers had two routes to advance their project - they could either have requested the Dublin Docklands Development Authority to make a Section 25 planning scheme for the site, taking it out of the normal planning process, or they could opt to go through that process.
They chose the latter course. Relations with the DDDA had deteriorated to such a low level that Mr Richard Barrett, a director of Treasury Holdings, advised a recent conference on property investment to avoid the Docklands area because "it's too much trouble".
To the intense annoyance of Mr Barrett and his colleagues, the DDDA decided to go ahead with the preparation of a Section 25 planning scheme for Spencer Dock; they see this as a "useless" exercise, given that they have made a planning application to Dublin Corporation.
A draft planning scheme, prepared by Scott Tallon Walker and Derek Tynan Architects for the DDDA, was recently submitted to its board; the developers will take no comfort from its conclusion that the volume of space at Spencer Dock should not exceed 3.5 million sq ft.
The DDDA, as the statutory authority with its own master plan for the Docklands area, will be making its views known to the corporation - and these views, which are certain to be critical, must be taken into account before a decision is made.
There are wheels within wheels, however. The authority always believed it had a right to be involved in Spencer Dock and it has made strenuous efforts to secure such participation. But CIE is quite happy with its joint venture arrangement, which it sees as a cash cow. Dublin Corporation, meanwhile, is caught in a cleft stick. On the one hand, it regards the national conference centre as a "must-have" project, because it would attract tourists out of season; on the other, can it really swallow all of the ancillary development now proposed?
"There's a real problem about how people are going to get to Spencer Dock," said one of those involved in the process. "If you provide parking on-site for the best part of 8,000 cars, based merely on commercial expediency, there are bound to be traffic problems."
The environmental impact statement on the proposed development is confident that at least 70 per cent of all trips to the site will be made by means other than the private car. But this is based on an assumption that a whole series of public transport improvements will materialise.
Instead of taking the scheme as presented and making modifications to reduce its scale, it is understood that the high-level team of officials dealing with the project has been trying to define precisely what ought to be on the site.
"What was submitted to us was never a realistic possibility," one source said. "Our remit is the proper planning and development of the area and that's how it is being viewed. What we aim to do is to make the right decision for Dublin now - and that's not going to be easy."
Although only four of the 26 buildings proposed in Mr Roche's master plan have been designed in detail, the developers are seeking planning permission for the lot.
They need this, above all, to secure a financial package for the £1.2 billion scheme. GE Capital, a subsidiary of the world's largest corporation, is standing by and will want to see what's stacked up along the road, as it were, before finally committing itself.