After a whole year of denials, deliberate ambiguity, interest roll-ups and wishful thinking, Peter Bacon has finally stripped away the layers of obfuscation and bluntly told the banking and property development sectors what they've been shying away from throughout this entire period: "It's time to look the losses in the face.''

The soured loans clogging up bank balance sheets will leave Ireland with higher taxes, less social spending, Italian-style debt levels and most likely large scale bank nationalisations.

However, the dire consequences that may yet flow from the new era of disclosure and write-down are not sufficient reason to prevent the disclosures themselves. The cleansing must take its course, regardless of the wider implications.

The mechanics of the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) are not yet clear, the risks enormous. Overpaying for the assets leaves the taxpayer bearing a huge, possibly fatal exposure; underpaying for them will lead to the nationalisation of the banking sector, a result neither government nor the bankers really want.

But the mechanics are for another day, the narrative at this point is all about the end of an era for the property development sector. Peter Bacon, in a summary report circulated last week, admitted the sun was about to set on the sector and no amount of legal threats from developers is likely to reverse that situation.

Even cash-rich developers, and yes there are a few, are going to struggle in the period ahead. Their collateral, assets, loans and even family homes will effectively be owned by NAMA. In that context, it will be very hard for many of them to undertake projects without getting some kind of NAMA-approval or endorsement.

Even if they can square their plans with NAMA, demand for commercial property is likely to be very patchy at best. The country is suffering from a glut of residential property, office space, retail premises and industrial land. The wise property developers who realised this a long time ago have diversified out of Ireland. One example is Treasury Holdings in China.

Collapsing demand is one thing for the developers, their lack of financial firepower is another. The developers, always ultra secretive, have for years shunned the stock market and now, ironically, they're the victims of their own need to shroud their activities.

As a result, they are locked out of funding streams. The bond market won't give them money, the stock market doesn't even know them and private equity and VC funds are likely to run a mile.

Sometimes, being secretive and selecting an unlimited company structure – which precludes the publication of accounts – doesn't pay, as we are now finding out. Even embattled British development companies like Hammerson have managed to squeeze some money from the capital markets in recent weeks, via rights' issues. But don't expect the welcome mat to be put out for any Irish developer in the next three years on the capital markets.

As Peter Bacon said last week, our leading development companies are led by "entrepreneurial characters" who have virtually no recourse to "equity markets''.

A lack of cash is one thing, but what about intellectual nous or skill set? On this score the future looks bleak too, Bacon concluded.

"In many cases [developers] do not have the depth of management skills to engage in the kind of portfolio sales and work-outs which ultimately are required to resolve the impairment issue."

Taking away the consultant-speak, Bacon is saying that the developers do not have the intellectual powers to retrieve some kind of value in a property collapse on this scale. Again, the developers have only themselves to blame on this score.

Consolidations, for example, would have helped, with the weaker being taken over by the stronger, with new and more robust companies emerging.

But regulators here talk about the property development sector having a "long tail".

In other words, there are a small number of big players, then there is a gap, and then a huge number of smaller fry hanging on by their finger nails.

This is hardly an industrial structure likely to survive a recession, never mind a depression.