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Can we stop with these pointless plans?

So the IDA will create 105,000 new jobs by 2014.

And according to the ESRI and Forfas, there will be an extra 250,000 jobs created between now and 2015. Last week's FAS/ESRI Occupational Employment Forecast report says there will be 1.95 million people at work in 2015.

And the Midland Regional Authority (just in case you are wondering who they are, their role is to boost the economic and social development of the region) has suggested there will be a need for 3,000 new homes in Athlone by 2016.

And the draft regional planning guidelines for the western region reckon that Monkskland will have a population of 3,890 by 2016, up from the 2,489 at the last census.

Now, all too often as a country we fail to anticipate changing circumstances. A prime example was how the provision of new schools lagged behind the huge population growth area around Dublin

But, in reality, we now produce grandiose documents planning and plotting every phase of our lives, many of which are fanciful and illusionary.

The IDA does a generally positive job for Athlone, compared to many other regions in the country, but there was a real element of blandness in its Gateway2020 document

Initial media stories over the weekend, which must have originated from within government or the agency itself indicated that four counties, named in some reports as Donegal and Sligo would be targetted for investment. Instead, what emerged was a bland, aspirational document with little by way of concrete proposals by which its goals would be achieved.

There was a target of locating 50% of foreign direct investment outside Dublin and Cork

So why this curious fixation with publishing corporate plans?

Possibly, it helps to create a perception of preparedness.

Or perhaps it's seen as part what we should be doing as responsible Europeans.

One can image a Eurocrat salivating over the various Irish plans, congratulating themselves on having imposed their Central European ways on the wilfully wild Irish.

Or maybe they are handy to have for authorities and organisations to wriggle out of difficulties.

"I'm afraid Mr Retailer your plan for a factory in Zone D of Area A of the local area plan for Ballygobackwards does not conform to strategic objective 1 of said plan or to the zoning matrix y applied to Zone D in Annexe Two of said plan."

Whatever boxes these plans ticks, they are given too much credence by the media.