IS there no way of halting the relentless sprawl of Dublin? Certainly not if we are to leave it in the hands of local councillors whose apparent rush to rezone every piece of land in sight - at the behest of landowners intent on making windfall gains - appears unstoppable.

Week after week, or so it seems, more agricultural land on the city's periphery falls prey to this frenzy of rezoning. Fortunes are made by the beneficiaries of these decisions - and the public is left to pick up the tab for new roads, schools, sewers and water supplies.

Some of these concomitant costs can be recouped from development levies but by no means could it be said that the landowners and property speculators are paying anything like the full societal cost of their activities.

Yet the engine of land rezoning is run by a curious coalition of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Progressive Democrat councillors, all of whom represent parties which say they are in favour of controlling public expenditure - in the case of the PDs as "an article of faith".

It was this rezoning coalition, sometimes with Labour support, which pushed through the new development "plan" for Swords two weeks ago. Some 367 acres of agricultural land was rezoned in this exercise, some of it outside the town's development boundary.

The Fingal county planners had previously opposed the rezoning agenda, arguing that it was beyond the capacity even of an upgraded sewage treatment plant. But in the end, they deferred to the "democratic will".

The planning "philosophy" of the council's rezoning majority was summed up by Cllr Cyril Gallagher (FF), who co-sponsored most of the motions. Paraphrasing Parnell, he declared: "I've never put a boundary to the onward march of a nation and I never will."

If this type of "planning" prevails, we will start hitting the outskirts of Dublin in or around Kinnegad.

The effects are already apparent. People think there is nothing odd about buying a house on a new housing estate in Kells, Co Meath, and commuting daily to the capital.

Almost every national primary route leading into Dublin has been widened to dual-carriageway or even motorway standards over the past 20 years, starting with the Stillorgan/Bray road. Two phases of the M50 "C-ring" motorway are also open to traffic.

New and much-improved roads inevitably facilitate new residential development. Look at all the housing estates which have sprung up in the Lucan area since the N4 was opened, each one marketed as being "just 20 minutes from the city centre" - by car.

The recent announcement by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, that he has approved compulsory purchase orders to widen the Kilmacanogue/Glen o'the Downs stretch of the N11 will lead to renewed pressure for more housing in north Wicklow.

Greystones has already been transformed into a sprawling suburb of Dublin and its rate of growth is such that it may swallow up Delgany and Killincarrig as well; these three once-distinct settlements will merge into a single unit if steps are not taken to stop it.

Instead, what we find is that Wicklow County Council is all too willing to facilitate development - such as the astonishing scheme, turned down last year by An Bord Pleanala but now back again, to tack on a large suburban estate of almost 300 houses to Delgany village.

LAST September, Mr Howlin intervened to request Kildare County Council to suspend its consideration of development plans for Clane, Kilcock and Maynooth until it had first carried out a review of the overall plan for the county, adopted as long ago as 1985.

This followed another controversial spate of land rezoning in which the customary coalition of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and PD councillors accepted the arguments of land-owners and speculators, against the advice of the planners and the wishes of their own constituents.

Clane had seen its population increase by 67 per cent between 1991 and 1996. The decisions made last July by the council's majority to rezone 139 acres on the edge of the village threatened to treble the number of people living there to 11,000 over the next five years.

This dreadful prospect was opposed by over 90 per cent of Clane's current residents and they sought a judicial review, in the name of Ms Margaret McEvoy, the wife of a local teacher and prominent member of the North Kildare Alliance for Better Planning.

On Monday last, the High Court quashed the Clane development plan on a technicality; it had been adopted eight days after the expiry of an order made by the Minister for the Environment setting a deadline for the county council to review its outdated 1985 county plan.

The ruling also casts serious doubt on other land rezoning decisions affecting Kill and Leixlip, which were also adopted out of time. If these "development plans" are also illegal, millions of pounds in windfall gains from the enhanced value of rezoned land will vanish.

In the meantime, Kildare County Council is considering a new draft county plan. Its main thrust is to shift the focus of development from overheated north Kildare to the centre of the county, around Naas and Newbridge, in an effort to achieve a more equitable balance.

But the danger is that Co Kildare will have the worst of both worlds - continuing over-development in the towns of Celbridge, Clane, Leixlip, Kilcock and Maynooth, all within easy commuting distance of Dublin, as well as a new concentration in the Naas/Newbridge area.

The council's Fianna Fail leader, Mr Paddy Power, a former Minister for Defence, has already said a "pick and mix" approach would be "as good as any other". Its chairman, Cllr Sean Reilly (FG), agrees, 50 it is more than likely that such a "strategy" will be pursued.

Yet the county planner, Mr Philip Jones, has said there is sufficient zoned residential land in Co Kildare to meet its requirements for the next 50 years. This will not make any impression on the councillors as they embark on new rezoning.

They don't have to consider the views of their constituents because the next local elections will not take place until 1999 - eight years after the last such poll. Nonetheless, their parties may suffer in the forthcoming general election if rezoning becomes an issue.

South Dublin County Council has also begun considering a new draft development plan. It held its first public meeting on the matter last week and there can be little doubt that this process will lead to a fresh spate of land rezoning.

There is another extraordinary feature to the development of Dublin. Even as more and more land is sacrificed for housing on the outskirts, the remaining green spaces within the city limits - in Milltown, for example - are also being gobbled up for flats and town houses.

Some sense might be made of a planning strategy for the greater Dublin area if there was a metropolitan authority with a brief to ensure orderly development. But all we have is a regional authority which, ludicrously, is confined to Co Dublin and has no authority in any case.

The Dublin Regional Authority and the Mid-East Regional Authority, which takes in the city's natural hinterland of Meath, Kildare and Wicklow, are talking to each other about a common strategic plan. But is such a plan likely to supersede the atavistic urge for land rezoning?

Successive governments have adopted a laissez-faire approach to the growth of Dublin. Perhaps it is time for the Minister for the Environment to exercise his hitherto unused powers under the 1963 Planning Act to intervene in the interests of the common good.