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

The vast majority of the increase in household wealth is in the value of property assets, as the Minister of State has acknowledged. Financial assets are significant at €374 billion but there is €534 billion in housing assets. The Minister of State argues that if we impose a wealth tax, these people might move out of the country and take their assets with them. They could not take housing with them and one cannot carry land and property assets from the country. It might not be bad if these people moved their money from property because it could lead to the extortionate price of property assets falling. That would not be bad at all. I do not really see the downside.

We could put just a 2% annual tax on the top 5%, comprising 85,000 people, who have an average of €3.26 million each in assets.

If we were to allow them €1 million each, excluded from that, for their own families, we would raise €3.85 billion. They would not feel the loss of a 2% tax on that level of income. In fact, they would probably be richer the next year than they were the previous year given the current level of inflation on property assets. However, the revenue that would accrue from such a tax would amount to a great deal of money that could be spent on health, education and dealing with poverty and all the infrastructural crises - the desperate needs of our society expressed in here day after day. Does the Minister of State not consider that would be fair and reasonable?

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