Alan Ahearne, one of the few economists who at an early stage linked the risks of a banking bust to the collapsing property market, spoke to a special gathering of the AIB board two years ago warning directors about excessive lending to property developers.

Ahearne's website at NUI Galway shows that he was invited to Portmarnock in north Dublin to talk to AIB directors on 23 May 2007.

The meeting used to be a regular event at AIB that supposedly allowed the directors to hear discordant views about the Irish economy.

But Ahearne's warnings came too late or were ignored, because Ireland's largest bank, along with Bank of Ireland and Anglo Irish, had allowed itself to become a huge hedge fund for property developers to bet that land prices would continue to soar.

In March, Ahearne was appointed as a special adviser to finance minister Brian Lenihan. Last week, the Department of Finance completed a two-week tour of European financial capitals talking to bond dealers in an attempt to dispel international reports questioning Ireland's creditworthiness. Other small countries have launched similar so-called charm offences in the international debt markets.

Analysis by the Sunday Tribune reveals that Ahearne, along with Professor Morgan Kelly at UCD and two economists in Paris at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), were the most prescient in their early warnings about the solvency risks facing the Irish banks because of their reckless lending to property developers.

In July 2007, Ahearne linked fears about a slumping property market with the safety of the banks.

UCD's Kelly was the first, in September 2007, to put the cost of clearing up any banking property mess at up to €100bn.

In 2006, David Rae and Paul van den Noord at the OECD warned in a major report on Irish property prices about the risks facing banks if property prices were to collapse.

Rae, then head of the Ireland desk at the OECD, said in 2006 that "two or three years down the line Ireland could have a substantial problem". He added: "It would take a lot of time to clean up the mess."

The prestigious forecasting body three years ago warned that it already believed the housing market was not heading for a soft landing.