There’s a back-and-forth in the Dáil between then-finance minister Michael Noonan and then Wexford TD Mick Wallace that does a good job of capturing just how transformed the property market has been over the last 13 years. On January 16, 2014, Wallace quizzed Noonan about the introduction of real-estate investment trusts (Reits) and feared for the “increased corporatisation of property, with little financial gain for the State”. Wallace warned that there would “surely be implications for the rental market in the years ahead”. “The deputy will be aware from his own experience in the property market that prospective tenants will…

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