Competition issues forced the Government to relax restrictions on the size of retail superstores, writes Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter.
The Government's removal of the cap on the size of retail warehouses increases the likelihood that the world's biggest furniture-seller, Ikea, will open a superstore in Ballymun, north Dublin.
Famous for inventing the flatpack, the iconic Swedish firm could create 500 jobs in a deprived area that continues to be blighted by high unemployment.
If other warehouse giants choose to locate their superstores in urban renewal areas, they, too, will be free to follow Ikea into the Irish market. The measure was championed by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, who has characterised the opening of the market as a boon for consumers and the economy.
He is probably right, although the Government should have made its move long ago. Indeed, the Minister's enthusiasm for the initiative glosses over the fact that his own Government moved only four years ago to prevent such warehouses from setting up in the Republic. Then again, this Government has never been afraid of a U-turn.
The 2001 retail guidelines that put a limit of 6,000 sq metres on the size of an outlet clearly stated that very large warehouse units in a specific market segment "can have an unacceptable local monopoly effect on smaller shops in town centres, particularly in a country like Ireland which has no very large conurbations".
That document also cited concerns about the traffic implications of such developments, which may yet return to haunt the Government. Such concerns have been shelved for the moment, with Mr Roche making light of worries that an Ikea store adjacent to the M50 ringroad and the M1 to Belfast would create traffic chaos.
After ignoring its own spatial strategy in the decentralisation plan, the Government wrapped up the decision as a special measure to boost urban renewal and coherent town planning. The new measures will apply to the eight places outside the capital that were designated as "gateway" towns and cities in the strategy.
Local authorities in Cork, Galway, Dundalk, Galway, Letterkenny, Sligo, Limerick-Shannon and Athlone-Tullamore-Mullingar will be empowered to sanction warehouses above 6,000 square metres from next month.
But there was more to the decision than that. For straightforward practical reasons and in the wider economic interest, the restriction made no sense at all. Preventing the likes of Ikea from entering the Republic was unwise when the company was threatening - as some had it - to set up north of the Border.
In addition, every analysis of the global economic downturn that followed the dotcom crash underlined Ireland's competitiveness deficit. Prices went through the roof, undermining years of hard-won progress and threatening jobs.
Without irony, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, had divined that consumers should shop around as the panacea to inflation. It is safe to assume that that same conclusion was drawn by the Irish people who travelled to Britain in their thousands to buy cheap furniture from Ikea. They might have spent their money at home, but the warehouse option was not open to them.
For good measure, the removal of the cap will not apply to food retailers. Many studies point to the decimation of small-time traders by out-of-town hypermarkets in the US that sucked the life from traditional towns.
That is a scenario that the Government is keen to avoid. But some are not convinced. The Irish Small and Medium Enterprise group claimed the initiative was a direct attack on smaller indigenous retailers and suppliers.
In addition, the independent retailers' group, RGDATA, said the decision had set a bad precedent. Its director general, Ms Tara Buckley, accused Mr Roche of facilitating the development of a "nationwide ring of megastores that will devastate Irish urban and rural areas".
Such attacks are consistent with a long line of dismal prophecies by business lobbies keen to guard their home patch. They are rarely proved right. One recalls that the traders of central Dublin seemed to worry that grass would grow on Henry Street when the Tallaght and Blanchardstown town centres opened. They were wrong.
While the Government has also been accused of responding to the whims of international business, there must be some Irish entrepreneurs who see opportunities in the removal of the cap.
Vigorous competition has always been good for Irish consumers and the Irish economy. Not all domestic firms have been eaten up by big bad foreign predators.