Tax Code
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-25
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Paul Murphy (PBP), Dublin South-West

We heard this week from Barnardos that, in Ireland, one of the richest countries in the world, 30% of parents say they do not have enough food to feed their children. A total of 44% of parents - almost one in two parents - said they have to cut back themselves so that their kids have enough to eat. That is at one side of the pole of Irish capitalism. On the other side is the 11 billionaires who are richer than 66% of the population. Eleven people are richer than two thirds of the population put together - 3.5 million people. That is up from nine billionaires in 2024. The richest two billionaires have more wealth than the bottom 50%. That is an Irish expression of a global trend, where billionaire wealth grew three times faster in 2025 than the average annual rate of the previous five years. We now have the world's first trillionaire, although, because of the share prices, he may not be a trillionaire at this moment, but it speaks to the massive inequality. A wealth tax, a tax on assets of the multimillionaires and billionaires in this country, is one way to begin to tackle this inequality and to put money back into people's pockets.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-25