As I talk to Dublin Chamber's outgoing president Ronan King about the future of the nation's capital, it strikes us that Jackie Healy-Rae has started something really big. Something that might return to haunt him. For a decade, rural TDs have been hugely successful in diverting resources and political attention away from Dublin. It's a process that King thinks has gone too far. The empire -- it seems -- is about to strike back.

But far from damaging the rest of the country, King really believes that if the government gets its strategy right, the rest of the country can only benefit. "To use a football analogy, you don't strengthen your team by weakening your strongest player."

It's a Thursday afternoon, and we are sitting in the lobby of the plush Merrion Hotel. Directly opposite Government Buildings, it's a building that epitomises success. But as anyone knows, it wasn't always so. Until the mid-Nineties the fine Georgian buildings that house the hotel were nearly derelict.

Yes, Dublin has changed. Wealth has come, restoring what was once one of Europe's largest and most graceful cities to much of its former glory. But not everything is good. Between 2002 and 2006, the population of Leinster increased by nine per cent but the population of the city proper -- the area defined by the jurisdiction of Dublin city council -- has risen by just two per cent.

Of course it ought to be the other way around: A growing economy with a rising population ought to urbanising its population, drawing its population in to well-planned urban areas. After all, urban areas are where it's easiest to provide public transport, hospitals and education. Dublin chamber represents the voice of business in Dublin city proper. But the reality is that Dublin city as broadly defined now stretches from Dundalk to Delgany on a north-south axis and from Hazelhatch to Howth Head on a west-east axis.

After a decade of an "anywhere-but-Dublin" approach to government, decentralisation is a classic example. King's successor Margaret Sweeney, head of Postbank, will face the challenge of getting the Government to start loving the capital more than it has.

"Even those that are outside Dublin accept that the engine of the economy is Dublin and continues to be Dublin. But there are those who under the guise of balance regional development say that that needs to be rebalanced and the investment should be diverted away from Dublin," King says.

It is, he feels, a big mistake "Dublin is the only part of Ireland that has the wherewithal within the foreseeable future -- I am talking about the next 20 or 30 years -- to be able to compete with regions that are growing at even faster rates in Asia and America, like Boston and Bangalore."

If it's going to start competing with those new global centres of growth, the Government will have to give the development of infrastructure in Dublin the same kind of priority that went into building roads in south Kerry. "I spent over an hour travelling on the M50 this morning just to travel about four miles. That just isn't acceptable."

The eastern by-pass, the orbital route, moving Dublin port, building the second terminal at Dublin airport and a metro are just some of the things on Dublin Chamber's wish list. It welcomes the National Development Plan's commitment to investment. But with government tax revenues drying up, King is worried that -- as has happened before -- the plan might be cut back.

Dublin chambers are anxious to emphasise that they are not trying to short-change the rest of the country. Investment in Dublin is, it feels, a win-win scenario and not a zero-sum game. "This is not about Dublin attacking Cork or attacking Galway. This is about Dublin taking a leadership position in relation to the island of Ireland and ensuring that we make the right decisions."

Having said that, King has no doubts when I ask him whether he feels rural TDs are having too much influence on policy making. "Yes I do, absolutely. We believe that the national spatial strategy is at its core, if you analyse it, an 'anywhere-but-Dublin' strategy. If you analyse where the funds are being allocated, Dublin isn't getting a look in."

King doesn't deny that local economies have a right to compete but says that even if we double the size of cities other than Dublin they still wouldn't be internationally competitive. Even Dublin itself, will find it difficult to compete internationally. "We're in the fourth division of major cities."

But an elected city mayor could give the capital the political clout it needs to grow cohesively. If that doesn't happen, the country's economy could be pulled apart in a hundred different directions.

"Our fear is that all of the growth progress we made in the last 15 years could be lost because of a parochial spatial strategy . . . it is well known in Ireland that regions that don't have a minister do less well economically."

From one point of view, King's point seems illogical when you think that most of the country's stunning population growth has occurred in Dublin's huge commuter belt. Isn't that a sign that Dublin is taking all the country's growth for itself?

According to King, growth needs to be more focused on the city proper. "We have a huge amount of work to do in relation to our urban design," he says, adding that in his view engineers have had a strong influence on urban design up to now. That has to change. "Urban design is much more about people who are visionary and who can balance planning with economic considerations." The only solution to that, King says, is to elect a mayor of Dublin who can govern for the people of Dublin.

Jackie Healy-Rae has effectively become King of Kerry diverting much -- admittedly mostly needed -- investment into his county. If they want the investment they need for their own city, Dubliners might just end up crowning a king of their own.