If the National Development Plan works, it will be seen as the dawn of an age of enlightened self-interest benefiting the entire population, writes Hugh Logue.
This National Development Plan is truly a product of the new post-Belfast Agreement era. For the North, gone are the territorial claims of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution, to be replaced by a pragmatic commitment to fund economic development for all the people of Northern Ireland.
One hopes that such is the scale and scope of the invitation to engage in developing the island economy, that those in authority in the North, public and private, will feel compelled to respond constructively. If so, historians will view this plan as the first major step to an economically coherent Ireland.
If it works, it will be seen as the dawn of an age of enlightened self-interest benefiting the entire population of the island.
In his Nobel lecture of 1995, Séamus Heaney talks of "wideness of the world" and wideness, in all its meanings, is at the core of this plan. It embraces the wideness of society, and it seeks to extend the wideness of Ireland. The plan seeks to address the key strategic transport, communications and energy infrastructure of Ireland from Kerry to Derry, and, with a planned financial requirement of €183 billion, it is a plan that stretches modern Ireland to its limits. It is the right challenge at the right time for this country.
It addresses the undue concentration of economic activity in the greater Dublin area and the growing concentration along the Dublin-Belfast corridor. A gap still persists between the standard of living in the Border region on both sides and the rest of the country as measured by the latest EU gross value added (GVA).
The motorway through Northern Ireland, to be partially financed by the Irish Government, linking Derry and the northwest to Dublin, undoubtedly will be as welcome to the people of Inishowen. That part of Donegal has not had the print of the Celtic Tiger's paw on it and it records unemployment in double figures. This plan sets out to undo that.
The willingness of the southern taxpayer to promote prosperity in the North, in a different jurisdiction, will be appreciated. But such altruism is taken for granted too readily by many northerners, as with the EU peace packages, or else is viewed frequently with suspicion but seldom with gratitude.
Brian Cowen has stated sincerely, and repeated wherever he goes in the North, that North-South co-operation is "a process devoid of hidden agendas but transparently motivated by good business sense and the mutual interest of the people of both parts of the island". Dermot Ahern has continually reinforced that message.
Many in the unionist community of Northern Ireland, particularly in the business community where Dr Martin McAleese's dedicated work has been convincing and reassuring, now accept that the aim is one of mutual benefit. The SDLP's measured "North South Makes Sense" campaign has also won respect and persuaded many that the challenges faced in an increasingly global market are better faced jointly with the South than alone.
Indeed, the creation of all-island strategic development funds for research, innovation, science, energy, education, skills, health, environment and social inclusion will encourage all seeking excellence and value for money to participate. The extensive range covered by the funds will offer depth as well as width to North-South engagement.
Of course, there is always the prospect that the genuine motives for including a northern outreach in the plan will be wilfully misread by some of those who propose to exercise power in the North in the years ahead. If the opportunity for mutual sustainable economic benefit is squandered, one suspects that Gordon Brown might be less than forgiving if asked to compensate northern coffers for such dissipation.
With the public purse opened South of the Border, the private sector North and South signed up, the social partners on board and Northern Ireland's two universities committed to the all-island skills mission dictated by the EU's Lisbon agenda, the strategy should be ready to roll. Not quite. The Stormont civil service needs to be on board, and right now, on North-South, it seems to be drowning in a sea of uncertainty.
A senior official recently explained to me that "my career is not at risk from doing nothing on North-South, but it may be at risk from doing something on North-South!"
The challenge to government departments in Northern Ireland to engage with this plan and to join with the private sector is likely to go unheeded unless firm political guidance is given to act upon it.
Add to the inherent inertia that already exists the uncertainty about the nature and stability of a new Stormont administration, and one begins to see how difficult it might be to turn the genuine prospects in this National Development Plan into real development.
Various Irish Government offers "to put money on the table" for cross-Border actions in recent times have not been taken up. The expectation of action following the publication last year of the Comprehensive Study on All-Island Economy quickly evaporated when Peter Hain commended its findings "as part of the agenda of the restored institutions". That dead hand again!
Even if everything goes swimmingly, restoration of the institutions at Stormont, in a sufficiently robust manner to respond meaningfully to this National Development Plan, will take at least to the autumn of this year. The hope must be that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen will take their proposals directly to Gordon Brown and persuade him to convert his warm endorsement of the plan yesterday, where he speaks of "our common efforts", into parallel financial commitment. Combine that with a Treasury instruction that this plan is the future - then we are in business. Only in this way can we be confident that key infrastructures are built in the plan's lifetime.
Hugh Logue is a political/economic commentator. He was special adviser to the Office of First and Deputy First Minister from 1998 to 2002. He is a former official of the European Commission