Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was not able to engage in the full Committee Stage debate, but this is one recommendation upon which I had a good exchange with the Minister. In light of that, I will not reiterate all of the arguments made previously. The concern I have is that we continue to look away from what is very much a pooling of wealth towards the top end of society. We know that Ireland has one of the highest levels of income inequality but also that when it comes to wealth inequality, the bottom 10% of the population has €600 or less in wealth. They have far less than one month's rent as a cushion. We also know that lone-parent families are the most likely to have no wealth or safety net, while there are others who have much higher amounts. In fact, those in the top 10% have wealth and assets of about €770,000.

There would have been an argument for setting the bar at €1 million but with this recommendation I am reaching for the very top level. Ireland has a very large number of multimillionaires and billionaires and anybody who is in that position can contribute more to society. That is why I have set the bar extraordinarily high. We should be teasing out this issue and looking at lower levels, however. Given the economic pressures being experienced at the moment, we should consider a specific wealth tax that is separate from property tax, capital gains tax and the other measures that we have in respect of inheritance. I appreciate that those are forms of wealth tax but we are looking at a situation whereby some people have very large amounts of wealth and are in a position to contribute more to society. This is the kind of time when they could be very reasonably asked to do so, especially as the wealth gap has grown during the Covid-19 period. Most small businesses and families really suffered during the pandemic whereas a lot of the very wealthy became even wealthier during that period.

I ask the Minister to consider looking at the potential revenue and distributional impact of a wealth tax on households with assets over €15 million. Having information on the potential revenue to be raised and the distributional impact would really allow us to assess the potential value of such a tax. I certainly believe we should make sure to gather that information. The measures of wealth that we have from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, and others capture a very broad spectrum but do not capture these pockets of super-wealth or the contribution they could be making.