Where has all the money gone?

By James O’Toole

The way Fianna Fail and right wing commentators speak you would swear that there wasn’t a single solitary cent left in Ireland at the moment and that the poor dears are forced against their will to lay in the boot to workers and the unemployed.

Ireland has one of he lowest rates of corporate tax in the World- 12.5% (compared to 25% for China and 39.5% for the USA) and we’re told that this is an inducement to bring ‘wealth creators’ over to our shores to employ our labour but in 2005 alone the Foreign Direct Investment net outflow was $22.9Billion.

Ireland's super rich saw their wealth jump by 15% in 2006 alone one of the highest increases in 10 years. The growth in wealth over that 12 months was such that to get on the ‘Sunday Times Rich List’ you would need to be worth at least €35Million.

And the wealth hasn’t stopped flowing in for those at the top despite the collapse of the Boom- 1,500 people last year made over €2Million.

Including residential wealth the top 1% in this country (about 40,000 people) are worth a ridiculous €170Billion.

And then there’s the Landlords who get interest relief and other subsidies from the taxpayer worth about €1.2Billion a year.

Then we could mention the fact that Shell Oil are getting an estimated €50Billion from the Corrib Field. With lots more to come.

So has the wealth disappeared? This sick pantomime with Lenihan claiming we’re broke while there’s a mountain of cash and assets in the hands of a tiny elite has brought us to a budget that continues the precedent that Fianna Fail have set for themselves this year- that is the transfer of wealth from the poorest sections of society to the most wealthy.

Instead of the prospect of even more taxpayer money being pumped into the banks next year we should have let them collapse and formed one State bank passing emergency legislation to take over the assets of the former banks. We should be hammering the super wealthy with heavy incremental taxes, we should reclaim our natural resources, close the tax exile status completely, increase corporation taxes.

But to even begin on that road we’d need a different kind of government, a power based on worker’s struggles and emerging from worker’s struggles - not one single party in this country has a solution to the crisis because there is no solution within the confines of the profit system.