Irish billionaire earns average annual wage in just over seven hours, Oxfam finds

In Ireland, the report said 11 billionaires are wealthier than 3.5 million people combined.

It takes an Irish billionaire less than a normal work shift — around 7.3 hours — to earn what the average person here earns in a year, according to a new report.

Oxfam’s Resisting the Rule of the Rich said there are now more billionaires globally than at any other time, and that this concentration of extreme wealth is driving an “inequality emergency” and eroding democracy.

“Billionaires own the media, dominate digital spaces and buy influence,” Jim Clarken Oxfam Ireland CEO said.

“Too many governments are siding with the powerful, not the public. The results are stark: rising extremism and authoritarianism, declining democracy, the shutting down of protest, attacks on marginalised communities, and the vandalism of our online ecosystems.” 

The Oxfam report said the 12 richest billionaires in the world own more wealth than the poorest half of humanity — more than four billion people.

In the last year alone, the collective wealth of billionaires surged by $2.5 trillion, while billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than an ordinary person, it said.

It also found that nine of the top 10 social media companies in the world are owned by just six billionaires, while eight of the top 10 AI companies are billionaire-run.

In Ireland, the report said 11 billionaires are wealthier than 3.5 million people combined.

The findings were based on sources including the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List, poverty data from the World Bank and hunger figures from The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025.

Oxfam said Ireland should side with its people at home and in the Global South by taxing the super-rich, regulating big tech, and tackling disinformation and hate online.

The charity also urged the State to cancel unsustainable debt and reform the global financial system, which it said locks countries into poverty.

Mr Clarken said the report laid out a clear choice between oligarchy and democracy, adding that “we cannot have both”.

“Since President Trump’s second inauguration last year, this trend has accelerated: fear is rising as life becomes less affordable, and billionaire-backed politics exploits that fear to silence and impoverish communities,” he said.

“Conflict is increasing as is the threat of further conflict as even now Europe itself is dealing with the threat of invasion or takeover.

“Ireland can help lead the pushback. We must build a firewall between extreme wealth and power. At home though our tax code and through our upcoming EU Council Presidency, the Irish government can stand up against the concentrated power that threatens democracy itself”.