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

I am sharing time with Deputy Catherine Murphy, and I eagerly await the barracking from the other side.

There is a pattern developing with this Government in the legislation it proposes and the statements of policy it outlines. It tries to tap into the huge sense of outrage felt by ordinary working people, the less well off, the lower and middle income earners in our society, who cannot get over the injustice of being forced to pay such a severe price for an economic crisis that was caused by others. Whether it was the last Government, this Government, the troika or the hallowed markets, all of these people insist that they keep paying year after year with vicious and brutal austerity.

That is the view outside this House and the Minister knows this. He knows that people are outraged. He knows that one of the causes of that injustice was the gross inequality in the distribution of wealth and earnings in our society. Another cause was an economic system that actively promoted inequality and an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor, and between the high earners and the low earners.

The mentality at the top which thought it was okay to earn €400,000 per annum, €600,000, €700,000, or €2-3 million per annum, was the same mentality that led us to the catastrophic crisis in which we find ourselves now. Meanwhile people in the public sector were chasing the chief executives of the large corporate firms who were on obscene salaries. They suggested that they should be paid the same because they had to discuss and negotiate with them and that if the bankers were getting €1 million per year then the head of the NTMA should get €500,000 or €600,000 per year.

Such was the logic driving the top of our society and the system generally in Europe and throughout the world. There were obscene salaries and pension arrangements at the top leading to extreme inequalities in wealth. It is important to note that this is not simply a gross injustice, although it is certainly that, but it is the major reason for the economic crisis. It is a fact that this grossly unequal distribution of earnings and wealth that has accumulated over time has lead to a situation where the behaviour of 1% of the population dictated the economic fate of everyone else.

That is what led us into this mess. Do we not know this? Have we not realised, based on CSO figures and the Credit Suisse global wealth report, that 1% of people in this country have an estimated €131 billion in wealth? Following the crash, a mere 1% of the Irish population has €131 billion in wealth. A total of 50% of this is held in financial assets, not even in property. This remains the situation and this is what must be addressed. These are the emergency measures we need. We must ensure that people believe there is some intent towards fairness in dealing with this crisis.

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