'The super-wealthy would barely even feel it': People Before Profit's Kildare rep welcomes report calling for wealth tax on multimillionaires
People Before Profit's (PBP) Kildare branch have welcomed an Oxfam report calling for wealth tax on multimillionaires.
The report was published today, and called for a 1.5 per cent wealth tax on Ireland’s multimillionaires, with the aim of to raising €4 billion.
It also highlighted an increase of 58 per cent in the wealth of Ireland’s billionaires over the last two years, now reaching up €49.7 billion.
According to the party: "The increase in the wealth of Ireland’s super-wealthy echoes a wider global increase in the wealth of the world’s billionaires, which has increased by an incredible €4.35 trillion."
In the party’s most recent Pre-budget submission, it pointed out that the richest 5 per cent of the Irish population (85,000 households) had a total wealth of €331 billion between them, with an average wealth of €3.6 million per household.
"While the vast majority of people have been enduring the hardships of the Covid pandemic, a small cohort of multi-millionaires and billionaires have seen their already staggering levels of wealth reach obscene proportions."
He continued: "This level of incredible wealth inequality is not victimless: we have 19,000 children waiting on dental care in Kildare/West Wicklow and over 900,000 people on waiting lists in our hospitals.
"We know the earlier we treat healthcare issues, the better the outcome (is), so this inequality has a real and deadly impact on the healthcare of our citizens."
"We have to address the extreme and levels of wealth inequality in our society: the very least we could do in this regard is impose a small wealth tax on the multi millionaires, which would raise billions for housing, health, education and vital public services... the super-wealthy would barely even feel it," Mahon concluded.