Over the last week, the public has been given some stark lessons on the meaning of private property. Aer Lingus's decision to scrap its service from Shannon to Heathrow has underlined the reality that the logic of private companies does not necessarily accord with the needs, desires or best interests of the wider community.
While people in the mid-west like to see this episode as typical of the raw deal they get from Dublin 4, they may have missed an example of the same logic operating just as ruthlessly in Dublin 4 itself. Two thriving, profitable hotels - Jurys and the Berkeley Court - closed this week because their owner, Seán Dunne's Mountbrook Homes, paid €379 million for the site on which they stand and needs to recoup its investment by developing a high-density apartment and office complex.
These hotels were an important part of the social and economic infrastructure of the city. They added something to employment, tourism, business and social life and to government revenue. They provided 600 rooms and the same number of stable, long-term jobs.
From the hardball negotiations between Albert Reynolds and Dick Spring in 1992 that led to the formation of the first Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition to the frivolities of Jurys Irish Cabaret, from press conferences and corporate agms, to wedding receptions and debs' dances, they staged important events in public and private life. As well as business people and tourists, rugby and soccer fans going to Lansdowne Road, farmers attending the Spring Show, equestrian enthusiasts going to the Horse Show, fans going to rock concerts and bleary-eyed revellers desperate to keep the night going, all passed through their doors.
There is, perhaps, a poignant symbolism in the sweeping away of all of this by the supposedly inexorable rise of property values. It seemed an affront to common sense that, in 2005, it was financially viable for a developer to pay an astonishingly high price for two hotels and then demolish them. In fact, common sense may yet prove to be right.
Both Dublin City Council's decision to block high-rise development on the site and the general cooling off of property fever make Seán Dunne's gamble look even riskier. The tangible, sustainable profitability of the hotels has been swapped for an audacious bet on property development. Mr Dunne has a formidable track record in this regard. But if his bet doesn't come off, the site of the hotels may remain as a monument to a time when speculative deal-making became more important than the real economy.