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

There is such a database in France, for example. The aggregate figures are collected and various bodies collect figures on wealth distribution, for example, Credit Suisse. The survey on income and living conditions, SILC, report provided by the CSO has begun to give an assessment of the distribution of wealth, hence the figure which confirmed many of the other studies that were previously rubbished by the former Minister, Deputy Michael Noonan, about the top 10% having 54% of the wealth. Of course we can find out. We do not believe in a local property tax but we have a property tax base. The Minister established a database to find out the value of property. We can easily find out the value of property wealth and we have those figures. We can find out the volume of deposits and the size of them via the banks and the Central Bank and likewise with shares and other such wealth. There are ways of doing those assessments if there is a will to do them. It is done in other countries but it seems there is no real will to do it here.

The Minister referred to the progressive tax system but that simply does not acknowledge the exponential growth in the number of multimillionaires in this country, which every single report on wealth distribution shows is increasing dramatically. The overall aggregate household wealth is increasing dramatically also but most ordinary people are not feeling it. Even at an anecdotal level that would suggest there is a small group of people who are getting wealthier and in the interests of fairness it should be something the Government would examine in order to get some assessment of the wealth, where it is, how it is distributed and how we could distribute it more fairly.

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