Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach for his prompt action last week in regard to the pension being reinstated to Annie in Ballyfermot.

I would like to draw out the points I made last week. Will the Taoiseach join with me in marking the passing of the folk singer, Pete Seeger, who wrote and recorded some of the most famous protest songs used by the civil rights movement of the 1960s? He was not just a folk singer; he was an organiser and a socialist activist and he and the Weavers were blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Pete Seeger spent his life fighting for justice and against austerity, inequality and creed.

The recent report by Oxfam aimed at the World Economic Forum and its recent meeting in Davos, to which the Taoiseach flew out after I raised these issues last week, shows a world of unbelievable inequality and an enormous concentration of wealth in the hands of a few side by side with massive poverty, squalor and disease. The 85 richest people in the world, who could fit comfortably on a double decker bus, have wealth equal to 50% of the poorest of the world's population, that is, 3.5 billion people. The richest 1% own almost half of the world's wealth at 46%, leaving the balance of 99% for us. In Ireland, we have the same process of inequality where 1% of the population receives 10% of the national income. It has increased its share of the national income by more than 50% since 1980.

Some crocodile tears were shed at Davos but, as one woman leaving the conference said, the issue of inequality seemed to dissipate off the table. There was no serious discussion on, or support for, the pledges Oxfam asked the rich to consider, namely, to stop evading taxes and support progressive taxation-----

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