Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Healy for this question. The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2015 provides a range of data in the area of global household wealth, its composition and distribution over the period 2000 to 2015. The report covers all regions and countries and brings together available data from a variety of sources. The authors of the report acknowledge the study of global household wealth is still in an early stage of development and that no country in the world has completely reliable information on personal wealth. This obliged them to assemble and process information from a variety of different sources. The authors state that much work remains to be done to refine estimates of wealth by country and to improve the estimates of wealth distribution within countries.

The most comprehensive source of information on wealth distribution in Ireland is the household finances and consumption survey, HFCS, released by the Central Statistics Office earlier this year. The data relate to 2013 and indicate that wealth inequality in Ireland for that year, as measured by the Gini coefficient, is lower than the euro area average. The results also show that wealth is less concentrated at the top of the distribution here in Ireland than the euro area average.

Ireland already taxes wealth in a variety of ways, such as capital gains tax, CGT, and capital acquisitions tax, CAT, which are levied on an individual or company on the disposal of an asset in the case of CGT or the acquisition of an asset through gift or inheritance in the case of CAT. Deposit interest retention tax, DIRT, is charged at 41%, with limited exemptions, on interest earned on deposit accounts. The local property tax, which was introduced in 2013, is a tax based on the market value of residential properties. The domicile levy introduced in budget 2010 also constitutes a form of wealth tax. It is aimed at high wealth individuals with a substantial connection to Ireland, regardless of whether they are tax resident, to ensure they make a tax contribution to this country in a year of at least €200,000.

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