There is little dispute about the existence of a major imbalance between the greater Dublin area and the rest of the country.
To an extent, cities such as Cork, Galway and Limerick have also experienced much growth and development in recent years.
No sensible person begrudges the success of their capital city, which acts as a locomotive for the entire national economy and as a resource for everyone. Yet, unsustainable house price rises, traffic congestion and other strained forms of commuting, pressures on schools, hospitals and family life, make it an urgent necessity to have growth spread more evenly around the country.
It is a fallacy to believe that this process will be steered solely by public authorities. Spatial development will always be driven by market forces in ways that are not always predictable. There is evidence all over the country, even in smaller towns or villages, of an unprecedented level of construction activity.
Their attraction is that houses, shopping and access to sports facilities are all likely to be significantly cheaper than in cities. Such overspill development may cause some short-term strains, but will also lead to the development of better facilities for a growing population. Most people broadly welcome the change, where the alternative has been stagnation, depopulation and run-down towns and communities.
Third and fourth-level education, which provides a proven infrastructure for development, needs to be built up outside Dublin, as well as inside it. Among newer institutions, the University of Limerick (UL) has been an outstanding success and an asset to its region. The same vision that was shown in 1989 in transforming the NIHE into DCU (celebrating its 25th anniversary as a college this year) and UL - which has been entirely vindicated by their performance since - will be needed to bring into being a university of the south-east.
Moreover it should be modelled on both UL and the University of Ulster, as a regional gateway for knowledge-based industry and services. The Waterford Institute of Technology Foundation, of which I am a member, and which met recently on the new Carriganore Suirside campus, is committed to this goal.
The Health Service Executive is apparently considering a new hospital for the northeast. Given ongoing pressure on acute beds, there may be a case for looking again at using some of the former local hospitals as step-down convalescent hospitals.
Infrastructural improvements, which are roaring ahead (the M4 Maynooth to Kinnegad and the M1 Dundalk by-pass are great additions), will not merely facilitate journeys to and from the capital, but make much of the country more accessible, and a more attractive place to live, work and relax in.
Critics rarely acknowledge the huge multi-annual investment in public transport, a complete departure from the practice of the past. Better internal transport and independently operated airports will improve personal choice and mobility, and help to even out the benefits of tourism across the island.
This year marks celebration of the twentieth anniversary of Knock, now Ireland West Airport, which boasts 650,000 passengers this year and 70 flights weekly this summer.
The scathing Dublin consensus against Knock was regrettably of a piece with many attitudes today towards decentralisation. Critics in the capital are mainly interested in highlighting and caricaturing the difficulties. The projects advancing and taking shape go virtually unreported, giving no sense of the progress on the ground.
A chorus of questionable reasoning insists that all substantial power and policy decision-making must be centralised for coherence sake in one location, and therefore remain a Dublin monopoly.
Why should farmers and food industry representatives battle for three-quarters of an hour through city traffic to reach their department, far removed from green fields - instead of finding it in Portlaoise? Why shouldn't the Department of Defence be situated closer in Newbridge to Army Headquarters on the Curragh? Why does the Department of the Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs have to be situated at present on the opposite side of the country to most of the Gaeltacht and Clár areas? What is wrong with being an hour's flight from Dublin, or with voluntary public servant counterflow commuting to towns like Navan, Trim and Drogheda?
Chinese officials are sent into the countryside to learn more about those they administer. High-flying French civil servants spend time in prefectures. Brussels governance is based on delegates from all over the EU travelling regularly to meetings. The Northern Ireland Office is bilocated in Belfast and London.
When the Dáil is not sitting, the Cabinet has taken to meeting from time to time round the country, which also provides an opportunity to hear at first hand local concerns.
The Oireachtas or its committees might occasionally do the same. Drogheda and Kilkenny are ancient parliamentary cities. One day, an all-Ireland parliament established by consent may hold some of its sittings in Stormont.
Finally, there should be no more glib talk about the demise of agriculture and industry, both of which are still vital to sustaining the people and the economy of the regions. In the excitement over new service sectors, and the construction boom, what has been a constant strength and source of comparative advantage, the fertile land of Ireland, should not be neglected.