Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have a very quick question. The Central Bank's quarterly report, which I always find a very useful document, contains something I have asked about, that is, the net household wealth figures, which I have a particular interest in. We all should have an interest in them. There was a good article on the evolution of the net household wealth. I think it was written by Paul somebody, a member of the Central Bank staff. I cannot find it now because my computer is locked up. The article showed the evolution in terms of the amount of information you get about the distribution of net household wealth. It showed staggering increases in net household wealth now based on the household finance and consumption survey, HFCS, and the distribution of that, which again to my mind is jaw-dropping that the top 10% have 54% of the wealth and the bottom 50% have 10% of the wealth. This is very interesting information. One of the things I ask for, if it were possible to further break that down, is whether we can look at the make-up of the different groups. What the article and the information provided by the Central Bank so far states that the top 5% have this much, the top 10% have this much, the middle 40% have this much, and the bottom 50% have this much. It is a kind of an upside-down pyramid, which is interesting and shocking. However, there is also then a debate about what it is made up of within those categories.