Dublin was down in the dumps 10 years ago when John Fitzgerald took over as city manager. To say that he has presided over a period of unprecedented change is no exaggeration, because evidence of the city's transformation is there for all to see. He was lucky, of course, in that his term of office coincided with Ireland's economic boom.
Projects that remained on the drawing boards for lack of money were suddenly affordable - whether it was the renovation of run-down inner city flat complexes, the installation of two Luas light rail lines or such grand civic gestures as the Spire on O'Connell Street, the remaking of Smithfield and the boardwalk along a substantial stretch of the Liffey Quays. Now that Mr Fitzgerald has decided to step down in June, he can look back with some satisfaction on a decade of achievement - not least in turning the once-leaden bureaucracy of Dublin Corporation into the more proactive, "can do" organisation restyled as Dublin City Council.
The lives of its social housing tenants have also been improved enormously, in line with the high level of priority he himself attached to revitalising so-called "sink estates". This was something he was determined to do, not least because the persistence of hopeless ghettoes would have been an indictment of us as a society.
One of the most important changes has been the repopulation of the inner city after decades of decline. From a historic low of around 75,000 in 1991, it is now estimated at 110,000 and will probably reach 125,000 by 2010. This influx of new residents has fundamentally changed the character of the area between the Royal and Grand canals, getting rid of swathes of urban dereliction in the process. Paradoxically, the past decade has also witnessed a flight from Dublin to far-flung, more affordable housing dormitories throughout Leinster.
The failure to curb the unsustainable growth of commuterland has been a national failure, to be laid at the steps of Government Buildings on Merrion Street rather than those of the Civic Offices at Wood Quay. What would make a real difference, as Mr Fitzgerald himself believes, is the establishment of a Greater Dublin Authority to take charge of strategic planning and the delivery of infrastructure to underwrite it. The Government toyed with that idea five years ago but then it vanished into a bureaucratic black hole; all we are offered now is a half-baked transport authority with a vague "co-ordinating role".
Major projects such as the Dublin Port Tunnel are finally being realised, not without controversy, although it remains to be seen how much relief this hugely expensive scheme will provide for the truck-choked Liffey Quays. John Fitzgerald is optimistic on that front, as on so many others. The civic leadership he has provided and his quiet determination to get things done will be missed, because there is no doubt - to paraphrase Shakespeare - that he has done the city some service. He has set a high bar by which his successor will be judged, after the process of selecting him - or her - is completed by the Public Appointments Commission.