Ireland’s rich benefited most from government policy over last 30 years

IRELAND’S richest people benefited most in the last three decades thanks to the policies of successive governments which boosted the incomes of the wealthiest, new research claims.

An assessment by a leading pressure group supporting the marginalised in our society claims that policies since the 1980s have increased the income of the richest 10% of households and widened the gap between these and the rest of society.

Social Justice Ireland (SJI) is calling on political parties competing in the forthcoming General Election to indicate how they intend reversing the support for the salaries of the richest in the years ahead.

An analysis by the group shows that in 2009, the share of disposable income for the richest households was nearly 11 times that of the poorest.

Disposable income is the amount of money households have to spend after they have received employment-pension income, paid all their taxes and received any welfare entitlements.

The richest 10% of Irish households received 24.48% of Ireland’s disposable income compared to 2.28% when it came to the poorest households.

Recent government measures including the bank bailouts have increased the losses of the poorest households, warned SJI director Fr Sean Healy.

“Resources are being taken from the poor to bailout gambling bankers and senior bondholders and to increase the incomes of the top 10%.

“This process of dispossessing poor people — by appropriating their resources to pay for activities they had no hand, act or part in — may be legal but it is deeply unjust and unfair,” Fr Healy said.

Figures from the European Union’s Survey on Income and Living Conditions (SILC), which were analysed by SJI, show two income brackets saw their share of disposable income increase since the late 1980s — the lowest and the highest.

But while those with the lowest bracket saw disposable income gains of +0.11%, the highest incomes saw increases of +1.34%.

Fr Healy claimed a number of other measures such as tax breaks for the better-off had helped inflate the incomes of richer people.

The pressure group also pointed out that there are now over 140,000 people who are long-term unemployed — the highest since the late 1980s.

The risk of poverty in rural Ireland was also 6% higher than in urban Ireland, the group said.