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

What is not discussed anymore, which I mentioned in my initial contribution, is wealth and income redistribution. We can argue from budget to budget about marginal moves this way or that way and in so doing not see the wood for the trees. By that I mean a staggering growth in the gap between rich and poor and a staggering growth in the differential between the highest earners and the lowest earners. Anybody on the left should recognise that. It is not just we who are saying it; this is what people like Thomas Piketty have done forensic analysis of, and to be honest, the jury has come in on that debate. There has been spectacular growth in the gap between the rich and poor and that is accelerating every few years. That is going to continue unless one has a radical policy of income and wealth redistribution. When one asks whether the top 5% or 10% should pay a disproportionate amount of income tax, as we propose, I am pleased that the Minister at least understands it because some of our critics do not. That is exactly what we are proposing and unless that happens we will not close the gap that is widening all the time. If one goes back to the 1950s and 1960s, the highest earners might have earned seven or eight times that of the average earner but now the highest earners are earning 20, 30 and 40 times that of the average earner. The Minister has said the top 10% pay 40% of all the tax, which is the case, but they also have 40% of all the income, and rising, and they have 50% of all the wealth, and rising. We need a tax system that addresses such inequality.

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