Unemployment was heading towards 20%; emigration was rife; the public finances were in a mess; the centre of our capital city was crumbling, pock-marked with derelict sites; the government of the day seemed utterly incapable of addressing any of these issues, and the public mood varied between outright despair and gallows-like hilarity.

Contrast that with those preparing to enter the job market in 2006. Unemployment is virtually non-existent; emigration has been replaced by the highest rate of immigration per capita in the world; our public finances are the envy of Europe; the centre of Dublin, and other cities, has been transformed; and public confidence is fuelling a massive consumer boom.

The nagging fear has always been: it can't last, can it? But, according to the NCB report last week, not only can the good times last, but they will . . . for the next 15 years.

The long-term forecast from the stockbroking firm is breathtaking in its optimism . . . predicting annual growth rates of 5%; a population topping five million by 2020; and the need for an extra 700,000 new dwellings.

Unthinkable as it would have seemed back in 1986, the problems that exist in the country today . . . with the possible exception of the health service . . . are largely the problems of success. Twenty years ago, it was easier to drive into the city centre of Dublin, or get across Galway, but that's because there was the guts of a million fewer people at work and hundreds of thousands fewer cars. Sure, houses were a lot cheaper to buy, but only if you had a job and didn't have to emigrate.

However, there can be no underestimating the challenges that success has brought and will continue to bring. Some of the statistics produced by NCB are downright scary. The prediction of an extra one million population and another 1.5 million cars on the road raises questions about where everyone is going to fit. It also at once highlights the government's successes and failures in its economic management performance over the past nine years.

On the whole (and leaving aside the crazy spending spree before the 2002 general election), Fianna Fail and the PDs have been good at managing the economy on a day-to-day basis. The booming economy has made their job a lot easier but, despite what the experts claim, it seems impossible to deny that their tax-cutting strategy has helped to drive employment and growth rates.

They have had mixed results in building much-needed infrastructure. While lessons have been learned, and serious improvements made in building roads, the delay of six years in beginning the crucial Dublin metro line, and the farce surrounding a decision on the second terminal at Dublin Airport, displays a serious lack of political will and innovation at the heart of government.

However, where the coalition has failed utterly is in addressing the country's chronic population imbalance. If the population was properly distributed, there should be no problem accommodating five or even six million people in the state.

But the reality is that our population growth has been largely concentrated in the greater Dublin area and government efforts to redress that have been halfbaked. A properly developed regional policy would involve the government concentrating resources on a few major urban centres . . . Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway, maybe Sligo and perhaps Athlone or Portlaoise in the midlands. In doing so, these cities/towns could develop the critical mass necessary to attract inward investment and develop public transport infrastructure to compete with Dublin. Instead, the government put politics before long-term economic planning.

Its National Spatial Strategy in 2002 chose a total of 22 growth centres . . . so much for building critical mass.

To make matters worse, when the government launched its decentralisation programme, it opted for an even more piecemeal approach, deciding to spread the 10,000 civil servants across 53 centres in 25 counties . . . one for every constituency in the audience. It then added insult to injury by easing the restrictions on one-off housing in rural areas.

The result of this economic myopia will be an ever-expanding greater Dublin area;

even more congestion on the roads; continually increasing house prices in the capital, and vastly increased pressure on services such as schools and hospitals.

Ireland in 2020 will still be a far better place than it was in 1986. It may or may not be better than it is in 2006. But, by then, our problems won't be problems of success. They will be problems of failure, failure to plan.