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

I said it would be scary if interest rates rose. That is a vulnerability. I accept interest rates are low at the moment and it is sustainable at this point but that could change. We learned to our cost after the crash in 2008 where that can lead.

I will make an elementary point about the borrowing of money. You borrow off rich people, and you pay them interest. People who have surplus money lend it to people or states who do not have enough money and charge them interest. Therefore, the people who have surplus money are getting richer all the time. That is how the financial assets of the wealthy grow each year. It is simple. I pointed out in terms of wealth accumulation that financial assets, setting aside property assets, grew dramatically by €13 billion since the last figures produced by the Central Bank. Some €400 billion of that €936 billion is financial wealth, not households. A significant amount of that wealth is constituted by multiple properties owned by landlords, vulture funds, real estate investment trusts and so on. All of that is accumulating and generating more wealth for those people.

I do not find the excuses plausible. The amendment would be reasonable and fair and there would be a lot of money raised by it. That is money we badly need in housing, health, education and public transport. Now more than ever with Covid-19, wealth tax is an idea whose time has come.

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