The master of the universe was sitting in his expensive suite in his expensive hotel in Thailand when his beautiful wife walked in. He had a dilemma. He wanted his beautiful wife to sort it out. "Think of a number between 50 and and 75," the master asked his beautiful wife.

She thought for a moment. "Seventy-five," she replied, picking the year of her birth. The master smiled and nodded. "Seventy-five it is."

Soon afterwards, he rang his people back in Dublin. He had been advised to make a bid between €250m and €275m on the Jurys hotel site in Ballsbridge. On the advice of his wife, he opted for the top figure.

"After all the work and science that goes into tenders, that's what it boils down to," the master, better known as Seán Dunne, later explained in a radio interview.

And so, in September 2005, the deal was done. The zenith of the property ladder was scaled, and nothing but blue skies and hot air was now left between the master of the universe and heaven.

If Tom Wolfe had set his Bonfire of The Vanities novel in Dublin in the last decade, developer Seán Dunne would surely have been the model for one of Wolfe's masters of the universe. These were men – mostly – who had discovered the elixir of wealth. They were connected to the source. Their powers ensured they only had to look at a derelict site for muck to be transformed into gold. They were surrounded by an aura that made them untouchable. As with the great scented brands, the aura had a name made simple for marketing. It was known as Bertie.

In September 2005, the masters of the universe were on top of the world. While Seán Dunne was reposing in Thailand, another master was affording a glimpse behind the veil of genius. Seán FitzPatrick told a gathering at the Irish Times Property Awards how he and his fellow masters of the universe had dragged the country up by the bootstraps.

"We had ideas. We had balls. We worked the scene and maximised the moment. The world watched in astonishment."

In years to come, as the Nama bill is haunting the dreams of children not yet born, the nation will look back on those crazy years with untrammelled anger. Hardly in the history of the developed world has the greed of so few in such a short time led to hardship for so many over so long a time.

The bubble really expanded after the 2002 election. Faced with the prospect of a return to earth after a genuine boom, conditions were created to ensure that the boom continued. Instead of making things to export, somebody twigged that the boom could continue by building houses and flogging them to ourselves.

The conditions were perfect. The single currency meant low interest rates. An opening of borders provided cheap labour. Foreign banks had oodles of cash to pass on to to the domestic institutions. And house prices had been rising steadily for the best part of 10 years.

Greed was good. The media was filled with features about shopping trips to New York, trailing in the footsteps of yesteryear's emigrants and returning with the best from Bloomingdales. The air above the Galway Races was routinely black with helicopters. "It's like Vietnam here today," was the opinion of one steward at the 2005 meeting. If you weren't spending, you were square.

A match programme at the 2005 All Ireland Football Final summed up the mood. Included was an advertisement for property in Portugal, endorsed by Portuguese soccer player Rui Costa and old Mayo stalwart, Willie Joe Padden. Paddy had arrived. The company behind the property was owned by one Michael Lynn, a poster boy for turning muck into gold. Both Willie Joe and Rui were as ignorant as the rest of us as to the real modus operandi of Lynn.

Property was the name of the game and everything was a sure thing. Risk was dead. We knew this because the masters of the universe told us it was so. And if anybody dared to contradict the masters, Ahern told them they'd be better off dead.

Of course, it wasn't just the property market that was an illusion. The idea that everybody was living it up was always way off the mark. A tone was set through the media and in the sales figures from the designer shops. That tone was represented at home and abroad as being universal through society.

When Mary Harney was telling us that "the country was awash with money" and the Taoiseach of the day was throwing the stuff around, we could be forgiven for thinking that everybody was bigging it up.

By the autumn of 2007, just before it began to come apart at the seams, figures from the Revenue Commissioners revealed that 13,000 people were earning in excess of €300,000 a year. A Bank of Ireland survey at the same time revealed that there were 33,000 millionaires in the country. A total of 1% of the population owned 20% of the wealth, and 5% owned 40%.

This was the cohort that was projected as representing the face of modern Ireland.

Some among them had worked hard for their loot. Others just got lucky. And some more who described themselves as "entrepreneurs" would have been better classed as gamblers.

The other Ireland, the one that existed outside the society pages, managed to get by largely on cheap debt. A response to a Dáil question in October 2007 revealed that 1.5 million workers earned less than €38,000. Consistent poverty in this rich country remained at 7%, while relative poverty was 17%. In a state of vulgar excess, nearly a quarter of the population were existing below a basic standard of living.

As the madness raged, any dissonant voices were drowned out. How ironic that one of the main influences on current economic policy is the perception from abroad, what those beyond these shores might think of our profligacy.

We cared not a whit about that when the party was going. In April 2005, the New York Times described Dublin as the "wild west of European finance."

The article pointed out that the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority had been set up two years previously.

"Despite its mandate for stricter oversight, the agency has yet to impose major sanctions on any Irish institution, even though Ireland recently experienced several major banking scandals.

"But industry representatives dispute the idea that Ireland may be home to unchecked financial frauds. 'I don't regard this regime as being in any way lax,' said Aileen O'Donoghue, director of Financial Services Ireland, a trade group. 'We certainly wouldn't be selling ourselves as fast and loose'."

The opinion was hardly unique. The published article was greeted with a shrug. What the hell does the New York Times know? Who do they think they are, questioning masters of the universe?

Now the masters have taken flight and the rest of us are picking up the pieces. Last Tuesday, as the bill for the future was laid bare, Charlie Bird went hunting down the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank. He found David Drumm in an expensive mansion on a salubrious road on Cape Cod.

Charlie spotted Drumm inside the house through a glass door. "Why are you ducking down," Charlie wanted to know.

"Go away, Charlie," Drumm replied. This particular master is suing Anglo – now the people's bank – for a bonus due since 2006, at the height of the bubble. The government says it is committed to pumping €22bn into the bank Drumm ran into the ground. While he reposes in Cape Cod, schools and hospitals prepare to cut back services so that the state may pay the bill.

On Wednesday, Seán FitzPatrick was taking a flight to Marbella, where one of his homes is located. No longer is he advertising his balls. These days, he is remembered for his brass neck in lecturing in 2006 that the banking sector was over-regulated.

And the other master, Seán Dunne? He's keeping a low profile in his Shrewsbury Road mansion. He was not among the first tranche of developers to get Namafied last week, which may have been a blow to his ego. A while back there, when he was being sued in the High Court, he claimed to have contracted swine flu.

Hardship is a relative concept for the masters of the universe. They certainly won't be too discommoded over the coming years, while the rest of us pick up the pieces.