When the Tanaiste visits Carrick-on-Shannon in Co Leitrim today to introduce a report on the need to promote foreign investment in the west, she is likely to encounter what local people describe as "a feel-good factor", a new confidence in a county once synonymous with depopulation and job losses.
However, in keeping with the thrust of the Western Development Commission report she is launching, Ms Harney will no doubt be reminded that the current building boom in the town will not be enough in itself to sustain the future economy of Carrick-on-Shannon. Foreign investment and industrial development are now needed to guarantee that the good times will continue.
The WDC report will argue that it is an example of a town ideally suited as a location for foreign direct investment. It is one of a number of towns around the west so identified in the report.
Carrick-on-Shannon has seen dramatic change over the past two years. Projects worth a total of £50£60 million are currently under way or are about to go ahead over the next year in the town. A major new hotel has also opened in recent months.
The main factor driving this boom at the moment is the Upper Shannon rural renewal scheme, which offers very attractive tax incentives for those investing in industrial, commercial and residential properties. Unlike other similar tax schemes there are also benefits for owner-occupiers.
Liam Farrell, an auctioneer and member of the town's Chamber of Commerce, describes the property market as "very strong". The size of some of the developments is evidence that there is no shortage of buyers.
These include one scheme of 75 houses, another of 66 apartments in the centre of the town, and a large-scale development on the outskirts, which includes houses, apartments, retail units and a private marina. Old convent buildings have also been converted into apartments and sold.
In general, apartments are selling for between £65,000 and £90,000 while three-bedroom detached houses are making about £110,000.
A new focal point for the town is also being developed at the old market yard built in the 1820s. A group of local people, including Mr Farrell, came together some years ago to form a community company, MRD, with the aim of harnessing the town's resources.
The renovation of the market yard has been one of its main projects and, with the help of money from the EU and the International Fund for Ireland, it is now due for completion at the end of the year.
It should make a fine centrepiece for the town, with old stone buildings and cobbled yard. It will include retail units and tourist accommodation.
Despite the number of houses and apartments being built, Mr Farrell says there is no shortage of buyers, and they range from investors to holiday-home owners, young people buying their first home and retired people. In addition, a significant number of local people are coming back to the area, either from abroad or from cities such as Dublin and Galway.
"There has definitely been inward migration over the past 18 months. They are not coming back in droves, but every second week you see somebody on the street you went to school with who has been away for years," Mr Farrell says.
In addition to the tax scheme and the buoyancy in the economy generally, Carrick-on-Shannon has also had a spin-off from the Shannon-Erne Waterway. The opening of a timber-processing plant, Masonite, a few miles away in Drumsna, which employs more than 300 people, has also helped boost the economy of Carrick and other surrounding towns.
It is a bone of contention, however, that Leitrim is the only county in the State where there has been no decentralisation of a government department. Most of the new jobs created over the past two years have been in the services sector or as a direct spin-off from the building boom.
Mr Farrell says it is also felt that State agencies such as the IDA have not done enough to bring in outside investment. "Masonite was the first and only US-based company to have located in Leitrim," he says.
"In terms of State agencies delivering sustainable employment and inward investment, we really have been failed in that regard. The facts speak for themselves," Mr Farrell adds.
People in the town believe that the time is right for such an investment, as many of the back-up services are now in place. The road network has been improved and the notoriously bad rail line between Dublin and Sligo is at last being upgraded. Telecommunication links are also being upgraded to the highest standards.
The chief executive of the Western Development Commission, Liam Scollan, said that given the amount local people had invested in the town, the time was now right for new investors to come in.
"It is a great place to live, and there are huge telecommunications and infrastructure programmes under way. It has a combination of social facilities and infrastructure and is exactly the sort of place that is attractive to investors and workers alike, as are other towns across the west of Ireland."
Mr Scollan said today's report, Promoting Foreign Direct Investment in the West, would set out how towns like Carrick-on-Shannon would avail of a greater share of overseas investment.