25% of Ireland's wealth is owned by 1% of the population

A new report by Oxfam, states that around €232 billion is owned by Irish's most affluent people. Two of the wealthiest individuals holding over 50 percent more revenue than the poorest half of the population.

As we see a bigger movement occurring not only Irish society, but a worldwide trend of wealthy taxpayers looking to investing their capital in financial products in order to build assets over a long period of time, the wealth distribution has seen a greater imbalance. For every €93 of wealth created in Ireland over the past decade, one-third has gone to the richest 1 percent and less than 50c to the bottom 50 percent.

Extreme wealth and extreme poverty have increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years. Billionaire wealth is booming, while millions struggle to survive. Let’s end this era of #SurvivalOfTheRichest. It’s time to #TaxTheRich to #FightInequality.https://t.co/bHXWrK4LTH pic.twitter.com/1jn5iWY5BE

— Oxfam International (@Oxfam) January 16, 2023

Oxfam Ireland CEO, Jim Clarken, explained how the the economic system in which the elite have ruled since the very formation of economy are continuously preventing Ireland's poverty population the ability to gain a solid foundation for a basic standard of living.

"Our economic system is functioning exactly how the rich and powerful designed it to," he stated. "As crisis after crisis hits the poorest people hardest, it's time for governments, including Ireland’s, to tax the rich."

Over the last few decades there has been a never before seen spike of inequality between the wealth distribution not only in Ireland but venturing into other countries' economic state as well.

The recent 'Survival of the Richest' study affirms thats the world richest 1 percent have collected nearly twice as much wealth as the rest of humanity put together

The very infrastructure that the economic climate is based off of shows a already upfront bias toward the worlds upperclass with the study claiming that despite inflation proportionally surpassing wages of at least 1.7 billion workers, the fortunes of the worlds billionaires are seeing an increase by 2.7 billion a day.

This pattern of impoverished communities continuously receiving the shorter end of the stick, despite being a marginalised group with a growing need for basic survival necessities, is continuously being shown.

Massive shareholders receive increased affluence because industries such as food and energy companies seeing an almost double growth in their profits since 2022.

However this economic upswing doesn't seem to be working along both sides of the coin as around 800 million people didn't even receive proper nourishment in 2022.

In our #SurvivalOfTheRichest economy the ultra-rich gain wealth from a combo of YOUR hard work, and their inheritance, tax dodging & using public $ to up their profit. It's time to #TaxTheRichhttps://t.co/bHXWrK4LTH pic.twitter.com/GWDspdQoZK

— Oxfam International (@Oxfam) January 16, 2023

Possible solutions have been discussed, with Oxfam proposing halving the number of billionaires between now and 2030.

Oxfam looks to presenting a more worldwide approach of implementing both wealth taxes and windfall taxes on the world's top wealth.

"In truth, it is being amassed by individuals," Jim Clarken continues. "It is not being put to economic use and it is just growing disproportionally compared to everybody else and what we are saying is that what need to happen now is this extreme wealth needs to be taxed."

Oxfam explains how Ireland would have have  greater accessibility in carrying out plans to progress on issues such as education, housing, healthcare and etc with the administering of a wealth tax.