It's a story that first erupted 60 million years ago. Forty thousand basalt columns emerging from the sea. Enduring and unique. A wonder of the world on our doorstep. Looked upon in awe by half a million visitors each year. The greatest geographical attraction on this island. And yet, in the first decade of the 21st century, a shameful symbol of Northern Ireland's bureaucratic bungling and political impotence.

On a windswept day, I travel to the north Antrim coast to try to unravel what the delays, the squabbling and the politicking over the Giant's Causeway are really all about.

Who's to blame and why will we have to wait until at least the year 2011 for acceptable facilities at one of the Earth's most spectacular sights?

Let me explain what we are talking about.

A few hectares of coastline encompassing the age-old stones and towering cliffs of the Causeway itself. This is the stuff of world heritage. That means, you can barely sneeze on one of those hectares without seeking planning permission from someone at home or abroad, be it the mandarins of Stormont or UNESCO in Paris.

Enter Seymour Sweeney, a man of the north Antrim soil, whose father fished the coastline and who has built a reputation as a shrewd and sharp property developer and businessman.

In the Giant's Causeway blockbuster, he has a starring role as the man they love to hate. This is a classic clash between private investor and public body. The question I ask? Is Seymour Sweeney part of the problem or part of the solution?

Sweeney purchased land hectares which adjoin and virtually land-lock the Causeway's world heritage site.

Unlike the coveted National Trust site on the ridge above, his hectares are unobtrusive, lower-lying, down in a dip, but still directly on the road to the Causeway. Why the National Trust or Moyle District Council didn't consider this land worth purchasing when it was offered for sale a few years ago, only they can answer. Whatever the reason, the land was sold to Sweeney and left a way open for him to launch his own ambitious and original Giant's Causeway plan for the future.

As soon as he did so, a battle began which has been going on ever since. Northern Ireland may have solved its conflict in that time but all attempts to reach a compromise between the National Trust and Seymour Sweeney have come to nothing.

The net effect has been years of deadlock, of decisions made one day and virtually reversed the next.

Of the jewel in Northern Ireland's tourist crown, tarnished by delay, inaction and a woefully out-of-date and totally inadequate temporary visitor centre, where even on a quiet day, women tourists have to queue to go to the loo.

The Causeway visitor centre, built in 1986, was so hopelessly limited by the year 2000 that a huge tome of a report was published setting out its many problems and charting the future.

When I read the report, I concluded that neither the National Trust nor Moyle council had covered themselves in glory in their stewardship of the Causeway, such was the extensive list of failings in the report. One word springs to mind. Mediocrity.

In April 2000 as the report was being finalised, the old visitor centre burnt down. Eight years later, we are still waiting for a replacement.

And we will continue to wait because it seems the only acceptable redeveloper of the site is the National Trust and it still has not produced its plans.

At one point, it seemed Seymour Sweeney, and his company Seaport Investments had the upper hand, especially when Moyle council decided to sell the site in 2001 and he and the Trust were the only bidders.

But then, the politicians intervened, from direct rule ministers to the first Stormont Executive. Moyle council reversed its decision to sell and left Sweeney side-tracked.

Then he played another card — seeking permission to switch the visitor centre on to his own recently-acquired site.

He argues that this is more environmentally friendly, because his centre would be virtually underground, situated in a low-level field, unobtrusive on the landscape, in contrast to the existing site which sits prominently on a ridge for all to see.

A delegation from UNESCO arrived in 2003 and poured a large dose of very cold north coast water on any plan which would go beyond replacing the old visitor centre on precisely the same footprint of land as before.

Since then virtually everybody involved has found a reason to oppose Sweeney's plans. The Minister for the Environment Arlene Foster also rejected his plan. This political intervention had one positive effect. It put a rocket under the National Trust, which is now busying itself with a belated planning application, which is due any day now, in a Stormont in-tray.

Meanwhile, the last contact between Sweeney and the National Trust took place over a lunch in the Ulster Reform Club in October. The stand-off continues. The alternative plans of Seymour Sweeney, now rejected, seem bogged down in an appeal process while the National Trust looks as if it will emerge victorious with its new plan.

However, there have been so many turns along the road that no one can be sure of anything.

Certainly no one has won to date, least of all the growing number of sightseers who want to visit the Giant's Causeway and find the existing facilities so unbelievably poor.

Having talked to both Seymour Sweeney and the National Trust, I remain baffled by why it has taken so long to reach any resolution.

Indeed, why the two sides in this dispute cannot find some common ground around their respective Causeway visions and maybe even come up with a joint scheme.

Many other questions remain. How much will any new centre cost the public purse? As much as £21m or more? Is this the best way to secure the future of the Giant's Causeway?

Will the Trust's plan — seemingly limited to a centre on the same footprint as the old one — meet the requirements of as many as 750,000 people?

How can the roads access and car parks be extended and improved to meet such numbers?

What of Seymour Sweeney and the land he owns right beside the Causeway?

What of his plan to build to an alternative tourist centre and improve the roads and car park access to the Causeway? Will all that now gather dust?

Is the National Trust the best steward of the Causeway?

I ask that because when UNESCO surveyed it in 2003, they were surprised that even though a visitor centre had been in place for 17 years, there was still no management plan for the place.

A lot of questions remain as we wait to see what the trust proposes and so far there are no real answers from Stormont.

On the face of it, everyone from every party should be at one on the future of the Giant's Causeway. Can any issue be more apolitical, more uncontentious?

Yet still we wait for someone to sort out this shambles.