The Dublin Council of Trades Unions’ March Against Austerity tomorrow (12 Noon from the Garden of Remembrance) is taking place against a rising European and global awareness of the power of the top 1 percent.  So what about our own home-grown 1 percent?  How much wealth do they own - wealth that translates into economic and [...]

At least since late 18th century, equality has been formally one of the social, political and economic objectives on the agenda of any society that has any claim to “civilisation”. This has, of course, not been without difficulty.
After all, those who are at the top of an unequal society don’t give up their wealth and [...]

The number of Ireland’s rich, measured as those having investable assets of $1 million or more, rose by over 10 % last year. To top it off ‘Ireland is perceived to be ahead of the game’, because apparently, our efforts to rein in the public finances have paid off for the Irish economy. This is [...]

Davy Stockbrokers nailed it: we’re not wealthy now, we never were. Though we had years of high income, private investment in the productive economy was ‘pitiful’, opting instead for property and construction. While productive public sector investment was higher, it was squeezed by fiscal policies which cut taxation - especially for those on high incomes [...]

In 2003 the Bare Necessities report by independent think-tank Democratic Dialogue revealed that nearly 30% of Northern Ireland’s households were poor. According to the report, in 2002-03 half a million people in Northern Ireland were living in poor households of whom148,900 were children (37.4 per cent of all children).According to the report, “based on the [...]