Since then, within and without parliament, there has been a cacophony of righteousness, directed at poor souls who are trying to turn a buck in the only way they know how.

The Prime Time programme uncovered false bids. It exposed estate agents working both sides of a transaction, doing a fair to middling job for a vendor, but looking out for the interests of the buyer, if he or she is worth getting to know. There was talk of collusions between mortgage brokers and estate agents. These two middle men often operate out of the same building, but insist that Chinese walls of steel separate them from each other.

Right you are lads, and keep those faces straight.

Anybody who watched the programme would have walked away with the impression that estate agents were a lyin', cheatin', thieving shower, who prey on the most vulnerable entrants to the property market.

Of course they are, for the greater part, all of these things, but the programme lacked context. In fact, you could say that when one holds up to the light the activities of estate agents, they appear as nothing less than angels.

We're talking celestial here.

God is, well, so yesterday.

Today we are living in the time of Mammon. And in this country, Mammon finds His expression through property.

Look all around you. Everybody wants to get on the "property ladder", as if it is a stairway to heaven, where year-on-year growth will ensure a serious return on investment, going forward into eternity. In order to get where you want to go, you require the services of an estate agent, or, to push the analogy, an angel.

Meanwhile, back on earth, the transfer of spiritual wealth from God to Mammon has continued unabated through the last decade.

Numerous religious orders have been getting in on the act, flogging their hallowed patches for a piece of the action. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Developers have been doing their bit too. For a while there, these bastards tapped into an emerging snobbery by labelling new estates as if they were plucked from the home counties in England, with their mews and kews and plenty of booze.

The standardised saints had had their day. St Joseph's Terrace or St Patrick's Green were, like, so yesterday, unlikely to add value to your bogstandard, half-finished, two-up, two-down.

Now, we have come full circle. Mammon is reaching for the sky again. The Saints have come and gone, but the current vogue is for vaguely religious or, wait for it, spiritual sounding housing estates.

Check out the likes of Loreto Abbey in the Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham. That estate is on the site of an old Loreto convent, but whereas organised religion might have had its day in the eyes of Celtic Cubs, the vaguely religious connotations associated with property sound just the job.

Go northside and you can get on down spiritually with a home in Chapel Gate, Drumcondra.

Down in Cork they want to lift you up to a higher plane in an estate like Eden in Blackrock. Pick locations anywhere around the country and you will find The Cloisters, here and there, doing their bit for a higher power.

And then, we have Eden Gate in Delgany, Wicklow, the garden of Ireland, where the forbidden fruit consists of an en-suite with a wraparound jacuzzi and whatever you're having yourself. Heaven's Gate must be just around the corner, probably most likely to pop up in a nice, zoned patch off the N8 in Kildare.

Hallelujah and praise the Mammon.

So lay off the poor estate agents. Through prayer, meditation and nifty footwork, they are but angels in a time of Mammon, hoovering up money by any means necessary simply because they can get away with it. But for all you children of a lesser God, let's be careful out there.