Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If Denis O'Brien goes and buys a yacht, a jet and a couple of palaces, does he then become a middle income earner because he has a net disposable income of €40,000 or €50,000 because he has a certain amount of outgoings? Surely middle income is a point. We know, for example, that the average industrial wage is a certain figure; it is between €36,000 and €37,000. We know that half the population have an income of about €28,500. There is surely a way of calculating this. We can get a breakdown of how many people earn between €10,000 and €20,000, and €20,000 and €30,000. Would the Minister not agree that when one is at the €70,000 mark - and I agree with the point the Minister made that many of them have liabilities or other pressures - it does not take away from a statistical point of view that they are in receipt of nearly twice the average industrial wage? In any jurisdiction, would the Minister agree that somebody on twice the average wage in a country is a middle income earner?