Nobody really took sports stadiums seriously before the publication of Simon Inglis's hugely influential The Football Grounds of Great Britain. His legacy was to elevate the importance of those same football grounds from both an architectural and a social point of view. He placed a city or town's football stadium right at the heart of its public persona and cogently argued that the shape and character of our sporting venues says much about how we view ourselves and how we want others to see us.

It was hard not to be reminded of his central thesis during the past week as the debate about a "national stadium" was re-ignited amidst all the European Rugby Cup euphoria. We had proved, so the argument ran, that we could compete and succeed on an international sporting stage, so why shouldn't we have the state-of-the-art sporting facility to match?

It is clear then that we've had the opening shots in a process that has already gone considerably further in Dublin. To the Northern outsider looking in, the panoply of stadiums either in development or at the planning stage - the new Croke Park, the FAI's proposed out-of-town development, the JP McManus-driven national stadium, the IRFU's next move - represent an embarrassment of riches.

Even more so when you take a close look at the sporting infrastructure of Belfast and the surrounding hinterland - Ravenhill with its ageing terraces, more crumbling football grounds than you could shake a stick at and a renovated but still below-par Casement Park. If this is what's called making a statement, then it's one which should be whispered sheepishly just in case anyone might hear.

The symbolism of the North's retarded development compared to its neighbour's headlong rush runs deeper. The public and private money which has been ploughed into the Republic's sporting fabric reflects, to envious Northern eyes, a society comfortable with itself and flushed with dynamism and optimism. A veritable hare compared to the leaden-footed tortoise.

There are many reasons to be critical of the Republic's current penchant for overdosing on sporting venues. When the plans to renovate Croke Park were made public five or six years ago, Simon Inglis expressed surprise in this newspaper that the scheme was going ahead at all. He pointed out that while most other European cities make do with one, and at most two "super-stadiums", Dublin could easily face into the next millennium with four or five. Inglis argued that such growth was unsustainable and that co-habitation between two or three different sports was the only viable way forward.

Time will tell, but criticism of the apparent over-capacity ignores the root cause of the insatiable desire for bigger and better stadiums and the seemingly incurable current fad for retractable roofs and movable pitches. The spanking new sporting facility is a modern country's most powerful calling card. It is a way of showing off, a way of proclaiming your new-found sense of identity.

Just look at the way the new Croke Park has enabled the GAA to put an extra skip in its step, puff out its chest and present itself as a modern, forward-looking sporting organisation for a modern, forward-looking country. Or cast your mind back to the swelling of civic and national pride engendered by the building of the Stade de France in Paris which was paraded as evidence in bricks, mortar and steel of France's ability to stage the World Cup with elan and confidence.

It's all a far cry from the moribund sporting development here in Belfast. But it's also the point where the great "Northern Ireland national stadium debate" kicks in. This operates on two levels and as you go deeper into each, the case for a fresh start becomes ever more compelling.

First of all, the inescapable truth is that the sports facilities here are a disgrace. Windsor Park, with its mish-mash of old and new stands and small seating capacity, is a third division international football ground. The other Irish League grounds are even worse. The meagre number of spectators who turn up either sit in small dilapidated stands or stand out in the open on decrepit terraces.

There has been some corrective work at Ravenhill, the Ulster Branch's grand old lady, but there is still only covered seating on one side. The only way the recent European Cup semi-final against Stade Francais could go ahead was to import row upon row of bucket seats to fill the other three sides of the ground. Casement Park, Belfast's premier GAA venue, is a more natural arena but again there is a stand on only one side. Improvement work is in progress in preparation for this year's Ulster championship, but when you realise that this is geared towards replacing a grass bank with concrete terracing, it's an indication of the huge distance there still is to travel.

Athletics is even more poorly served. The Mary Peters Track is little more than a running track surrounded by banking and is not even close to the standards required for hosting an international meeting of any status. For a city of Belfast's size and proud athletics tradition, that is indefensible.

But this is about more than comfort, safety or quality. Even with the necessary foresight and the unlimited finance required to bring any of these venues up to international standard, none would be suitable for the simple reason that they all carry too much baggage - and in this society, the importance of that cannot be overstated.

The hostile and intimidating atmosphere at Windsor Park on international football nights has been well documented. Ravenhill is so closely associated with its rugby past that it would be all but impossible for it to reinvent itself. Casement Park, too, has deep symbolic and historical associations. Ulster's European Cup run has highlighted the dearth of top-quality facilities here. Current GAA thinking means that it is unlikely to jump into bed with anyone, but there is an obvious need for a venue for international soccer matches, inter-provincial and European Cup rugby ties and international athletics meetings. That is why a new stadium now makes sense.

Prospective sites have been earmarked on greenfield sites on the outskirts of Belfast - what's needed now is an amalgam of foresight by the governing bodies, political will and private sector investment. Any new development need only be modest - a 40,000-seater arena with a running track surrounding a football-rugby pitch, with some sort of subsidiary leisure element would be more than sufficient. But that modesty would belie the eloquence of the statement a new stadium would make - that this is a society ready to start growing up.