The sale of Cablelink for £535 million earlier this year only whetted Mary O'Rourke's appetite for hard cash. Within two weeks the value of the State's 50 per cent holding in Telecom will be realised at a benefit to the Exchequer ranging from £5.8 billion to £7.2 billion. And the Minister for Public Enterprise is already teeing up a number of other commercial operations.

Ms O'Rourke is not the only Cabinet member to be affected by sales fever. Charlie McCreevy is finally getting around to disposing of State banks. And Michael Woods is contemplating the disposal of Coillte, the State forestry company, along with 423,000 hectares of land.

The onset of wall-to-wall privatisation of State assets is formally denied by Ministers, who explain they have open minds about selling the family silver and are merely initiating consultancy studies. But when an infra structural investment programme of £25 billion is pending and the consultants employed to sell Telecom are also engaged to chart a future for Coillte, the trend in Government thinking seems clear.

Of course, raising money isn't the only consideration. Introducing competition, responding to EU directives and encouraging efficiencies and economic growth are prime objectives. The old ideological pro-statist position has been overrun by market forces.

Left-wing parties are largely silent, frozen into immobility by the sight of State workers stampeding to get free shares in their companies, while the broad electorate queues to get its slice of the flotation cake.

The Labour Party's promise of the 1970s to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy was never a vote-winner. Today it is regarded as an anachronism. Ruairi Quinn has moved on, accepting the break-up of State monopolies, but at the same time advocating the development of strong public enterprise.

Fine Gael is content to monitor the disposal of State assets and only becomes involved, as does Labour, when the workforce objects.

In that regard, the threatened sale of the Great Southern Hotel Group by Aer Rianta brought the Opposition parties together in the Dail this month. They demanded explanations from Ms O'Rourke and talked about broader social and commercial considerations, such as the retention of CERT training facilities. They also asked that the hotels be retained as a commercial entity, if necessary through a State shareholding. But such political concern could dissipate quickly if the hotel workers are mollified by an attractive offer.

Coillte is a robber baron's dream, a hugely valuable asset waiting to be plucked. The company owns 6 per cent of the landmass of the State, yet its flotation value would be based on its profitability rather than on its landbank.

A healthy stock market rating of 20 times earnings would value the company at only about £400 million, but its land holding and forests are estimated to be worth about £1,000 million. Much of the forest estate is immature and less than 25 years old. Flotation in those circumstances would seem to be a recipe for an unprecedented State rip-off.

There are alternatives. Last year the Government received a report on pensions which recommended long-term investment to provide for an ageing population. And the Minister for Finance is expected to devote some of the proceeds from the Telecom sale to that purpose in the coming Budget.

But Coillte is ready-made as a public pension fund investment vehicle. It offers good long-term growth and important social underpinnings. Selling its vast plantations to the private sector would have implications for tourism, because of walking access considerations, and would raise environmental and agricultural issues.

Private pension funds are already engaged in the timber industry, and a five-year-old partnership controlled by AIB, Irish Life and a subsidiary of Coillte is now the largest private forestry-grower in the State. Unit prices in the fund rose by 8.4 per cent last year.

Irish Forestry Unit Trust is still tiny by Coillte standards - it owns 11,000 hectares of forestry compared to the State's 423,000 hectares - but it plans to increase investment to £250 million in the years ahead. In the context of future State pensions, Coillte could reinvent itself and raise some much-needed capital.

The programme for government agreed by Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats offers no Exchequer funding to State companies. But it states: "Additional capital needs, where they cannot be provided internally, may be provided by means of strategic alliances which may also enlarge their market and by long-term pension fund and employee shareholding."

There are circumstances, however, where privatisation generates resistance within all political parties. Swapping a State monopoly for a private monopoly is one of them. And while the Minister for Public Enterprise is considering the future of Aer Rianta, the transfer of this monopoly into private hands would seem ill-advised.

Such a move would be rejected by the Opposition parties. Even Des O'Malley might not be on board. While the former leader of the Progressive Democrats is an enthusiastic supporter of privatisation as a means of creating competition, he warned a recent party conference to guard against creating private monopolies in key sectors of the Irish economy. Monopolies, he told delegates, "are generally bad and private monopolies are frequently worse than public monopolies".

A report on the future of Aer Rianta will be presented to Cabinet next month by Ms O'Rourke. At the same time, she will report to the Government on Aer Lingus's future, in terms of plans to form a strategic alliance with British Airways and American Airlines.

Control of the Luas transport system for Dublin is to be handed over to the private sector in return for building an underground section in the city-centre. And efforts continue to generate competition for the ESB through encouraging private companies and the appointment of an independent regulator.

The Minister for Finance expects to raise up to £300 million when he sells the Industrial Credit Corporation on the open market in the autumn. But the real action for small investors will take place when Mr McCreevy floats the Agricultural Credit Corporation and the TSB banks next year.

Infrastructural investment of £25 billion over six years is unprecedented. But so is our budgetary surplus. And we are assured by economists that the investment can be afforded through our buoyant economy, EU funding and public-private partnership arrangements. If that is so, a more measured approach to the disposal of State assets might be warranted.

The key that unlocked the press holding the "family silver" was a free share scheme for workers. Once 5 per cent of the equity, or more, was allocated to employees, self-interest took over and a government could do as it wished. In the rush to raise ready cash, however, punters and politicians should remember there is no such thing as a free lunch.