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

I will offer the Minister an example of something that was in the news today which indicates the need for some redistribution. Taking one of the tax breaks that currently go to wealthy executives in some of the big multinational corporations the Minister is talking about - the figures are broadly similar for some of these tax breaks - the special assignee relief programme, SARP, will cost approximately €8 million this year. The Minister will tell me if I have got that exactly right. It is not a huge amount but it is a tax relief that goes to people on the very highest salaries. That figure is approximately the amount that would have allowed the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to give a grant to every single musician who applied for the music industry stimulus package. There was not enough money in that pot - as I said, the amount needed was around €8 million - and 87% of the 1,400 artists who applied to the fund in order to record a single or album this year were denied the support. These are people whose jobs and livelihoods have been impacted by the Covid crisis. Would it not be fairer if some of the tax breaks that are on offer, instead of going to a handful of already rich people, went to the 1,400 musicians who are on their knees because of the pandemic? That is just a small instance but it is a telling one in terms of the inequality to which I referred. The reason the top 1% or 10% pay such a high proportion of tax is that they have approximately 40% of all income and some 58% of all wealth.

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