Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 53:

In page 42, after line 36, to insert the following:

“CHAPTER 7

Millionaires’ Tax

30. (1) The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, bring a report on additional revenue that would be raised by introducing a Millionaires’ Tax of 2 per cent on net wealth exceeding €1 million.

(2) The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this bill, compile a national database on the distribution of wealth and assets.”.

Amendment No. 53 seeks to have a report carried out on what we call a "millionaires' tax", which is a tax on net assets exceeding €1 million. Linked to that, the amendment provides for the compiling of a national database on the distribution of wealth and assets to allow accurate information be compiled on what a wealth tax would raise and, ultimately, to allow such a tax to be implemented. This is linked to global crisis of rising inequality. I am sure the Minister of State has seen the Oxfam figures which indicate that, two years ago, approximately 160 people controlled the same amount of wealth as the bottom 50% of the world's population. That dropped to 8 people last January and had decreased to 6 people in February. Inequality is rising at an extremely quick pace and wealth is being concentrated in very few hands.

The same is reflected in Ireland. There are different studies here, including the CSO's household finance and consumption survey of 2013. The Think-tank for Action on Social Change, TASC, analysed this survey in its report The Distribution of Wealth in Ireland. There was also an ESRI working paper in 2016. From that information it can be concluded that the top 1% of the population in Ireland holds 14.8% of the total wealth, the top 5% controls 37.7%, the top 10% controls 53.8% and the bottom 50% controls less than 5% - only 4.9%. Separately, the Central Bank currently estimates household net wealth at €654 billion. That figure has increased dramatically over the course of the last year. According to the Sunday Independent rich list, the 300 richest people have effectively doubled their personal wealth from €50 billion five years ago to €100 billion at the moment.

Ireland is an enormously wealthy country. The issue is that wealth is owned and controlled by a very small number of people at the top, hence the proposal for a millionaires' tax. We did the maths and, taking the Central Bank's figures for overall household net wealth and breaking them down according to the figures we have on the distribution of wealth, we determined that a 2% tax on net wealth exceeding €1 million would raise €3.238 billion. That would affect only the top 5% of wealth holders in the economy - fewer than 85,000 households.