What is officially known as the Maze Long Kesh (MLK) site should today have been the home of both an internationally celebrated peace centre and a major sports stadium, attracting many hundreds of thousands of visitors annually and providing massive economic benefits.
Instead, the sprawling, publicly-owned 350-acre location outside Lisburn lies largely empty and disused for most of the year, and stands as a monument to the lack of vision which has regularly surrounded our Stormont structures.
What is particularly frustrating is that the money had been allocated for both of the main MLK projects, and all the indications were that the political consensus required to launch the construction work at the former prison was also in place.
Sadly, disputes and uncertainty within the DUP firstly forced the abandonment of the 40,000-seat multi-sports complex, due to be shared by the GAA, soccer and rugby, with the peace centre also subsequently scrapped.
The symbolism of the three main codes playing top-class fixtures in the same futuristic setting would have been powerful, and allowed all the subsequent upheaval and additional expenditure over the development of Casement Park in Belfast to be avoided.
Unfortunately, there were still shrill voices who could not cope with the idea of parity of esteem being extended to the GAA, and the plug was permanently pulled on the entire stadium proposal back in 2008.
There were still strong hopes that the peace-building and conflict resolution centre would be confirmed, with the DUP, as the largest Stormont grouping at the time, centrally involved in shaping the plans, which involved securing the services of a world-famous architect.
Daniel Libeskind, who supervised the acclaimed Ground Zero project in New York and the Jewish Holocaust Museum in Berlin, highlighted the inclusive nature of his previous work and spoke from the start of the need to bring people from all traditions together at MLK.
It was ludicrous that narrow-minded opponents claimed the final result would be a “shrine to terrorism”, but again, having agreed the strategy, the DUP completely caved in when familiar pressures were exerted in 2013.
While it is obvious that some on the fringes of both nationalism and unionism occasionally set out to exchange insults or engage in triumphalism over past dreadful events, it is up to our senior politicians to rise above all the negativity and display leadership.
There is still a chance that the MLK scheme could move at least some way towards its original aim of attracting some £800m of investment and creating up to 14,000 jobs, and the interest expressed by National Museums NI in playing a role which has emerged in recent days may be the catalyst which is so urgently required.
The publicly-owned 350-acre site stands as a monument to the lack of vision which has regularly surrounded our Stormont structures
