Donal O’Donovan: When an Ires shareholder bets the State will pay more for its apartments than the markets, it is time to take stock

Vision Capital wants greater returns, and it knows a crisis-hit Government could be the solution

Ires Reit chief executive Margaret Sweeney

Donal O'Donovan

Shareholders in Ires Reit, the country’s biggest private sector landlord, have floated the idea of selling some of its less luxurious apartments to the Government, arguing, in essence, that taxpayers will pay more for the properties than their stock market price.

Stepping back from the increasingly bitter war of words between the Ires board and its dissident shareholders over the future of that company, it says something stark about how the property market now sees the Government’s desperate appetite for housing stock as a potential financial lifeline.