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

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That is a fact that is revealed yet again, as it is year after year, in the Oxfam report. It is not just a left-wing slogan; it is a fact. While the cost of living is crucifying and impoverishing tens of millions of people across the world, the world's billionaires and multimillionaires are getting richer by the day. The two things are directly related. It is not just a global picture but, as Oxfam reveals, it is also the Irish domestic picture. There has been a 55% increase during the two years of the pandemic in the assets of Ireland's billionaires. That is absolutely extraordinary. It brings their wealth up to a total of €51 billion. Just nine individuals have had an increase in wealth of €15.5 billion in one year. Meanwhile, 691,000 people in Ireland are suffering from deprivation, and those figures are increasing as we speak. The profits of energy companies, food companies, pharmaceutical companies and so on - which the report refers to specifically - are rocketing while ordinary people are impoverished. Oxfam calls, as we have done, for modest tax increases on Ireland's billionaires and multimillionaires. Oxfam states that a 1.5% tax on millionaires who have wealth in excess of €4 million would generate €4 billion a year in extra wealth. Imagine what that would do for housing, poverty and deprivation. This Government refuses to even think about it.

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