Oxfam Report Highlights Extreme Wealth Inequality

People Before Profit's Richard Boyd Barrett welcomes Oxfam ‘Takers Not Makers’ wealth and inequality report. Reiterates call for wealth tax on wealthiest 1% in Ireland to fund health and disability services.

Oxfam Report Highlights Extreme Wealth Inequality

Oxfam has published their latest report on wealth and inequality, ‘Takers Not Makers’, on the eve of the annual gathering of the corporate elites in Davos. Oxfam note the extreme wealth of the new Trump administration team. Even if Elon Musk’s wealth is excluded, it will be the wealthiest cabinet in history. A cabinet of billionaires for billionaires.

The report highlights that in Ireland in 2024, billionaire wealth increased by €13 billion, a rate of €35.6 million per day, and two new billionaires were created in Ireland in 2024. Oxfam points out that it takes just 5 days for someone in the top 1% in Ireland to make what the average person in the bottom 50% makes all year.

The Oxfam report calls for a 1.5% wealth tax on the extreme wealth in Ireland to fund public services and achieve global and climate justice.

Richard Boyd Barrett, People Before Profit TD, said, ‘In our Budget 2025 proposals, People Before Profit proposed a progressive wealth tax on Irish multi-millionaires and billionaires that was informed by previous Oxfam wealth reports. Our wealth tax would apply only to the 1% of the Irish population that possesses more than €4.7 million in wealth, excluding the family home. These proposals would generate an estimated €8 billion annually that could fund public services, disability services and could make poverty history.

‘We live in a world and a state of grotesque wealth and inequality. The incoming Government has no intention of tackling that inequality or taxing the wealth of the privileged few. On the contrary, this government will work every day to protect the interests of Ireland’s billionaires, some with growing business interests in Israel, while the same Government postpones modest proposals to increase paid sick leave for workers, keeps the health service in the deadly grip of a ‘pay and numbers’ recruitment embargo, and refuses pay justice for thousands of workers in Section 39 organisations.’