Irish billionaire wealth increased by €13bn in 2024, Oxfam say

Ellen O'Donoghue

Irish billionaire wealth increased by €13 billion in 2024, amounting to an increase of €35.6 million per day.

According to Oxfam, Irish billionaire wealth could carpet the whole of Phoenix Park in €50 notes almost 1.5 times over.

There were two new billionaires in Ireland in 2024, and since 2019, Irish billionaire wealth has increased by €4.2 billion.

It takes just five days for someone in the top one per cent to make what the average person in the bottom 50 per cent makes all year, Oxfam said.

On Monday, Oxfam published Takers Not Makers as business elites gathered in the Swiss resort town of Davos, and as billionaire Donald Trump, backed by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, is inaugurated as President of the United States.

Globally, billionaire wealth increased by $2 trillion in 2024, three times faster than the year before.

Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990, Oxfam said.

It added that there were 204 newly minted billionaires in 2024, nearly four every week.

The NGO predict that there will be at least five trillionaires a decade from now.

Jim Clarken, chief executive of Oxfam Ireland, said that the capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached “heights once considered unimaginable.

“The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated - by three times - but so too has their power,” he said.

“Billionaires increasingly control not just economies but narratives and that is why in this report we challenge the popular perception that their vast wealth is deserved or based on merit.

“Oxfam calculates that 36 per cent of billionaire wealth is now inherited. This report shows how extreme wealth is not simply a function of talent or ingenuity alone but built on the back of the work of countless others and taxpayer investment.”

Mr Clarken also noted that Trump’s team is set to be the richest ever to run a US government, worth more than $450 billion.

“There are at least 13 billionaires appointed to jobs in his administration. And even if you exclude Elon Musk, Trump's cabinet would be the richest in history,” he said.

“We are witnessing the rise of a modern oligarchy, where wealth is used to build and consolidate political power and vice versa. Meanwhile, global poverty remains at 1990 levels. We must first acknowledge the disparity and set about reversing the trend.”

The report also claimed that the unequal world is built on a legacy of historical colonialism and how colonialism now has a modern-day form, with the global economy still structured in ways that lead to wealth flowing from the Global South to the Global North.

The richest one per cent in the Global North countries such as the United States, United Kingdom and France extracted $30 million an hour from the Global South through the financial system in 2023, it said.

It added that the Global North countries control 69 per cent of global wealth, 77 per cent of billionaire wealth and are home to 68 per cent of billionaires, despite making up just 21 per cent of the global population.

The average Belgian, according to the report, has around 180 times more voting power in the largest arm of the World Bank than the average Ethiopian.

Oxfam Ireland have urged the next Government to tax extreme wealth to pay for public services, honour international commitments and to broaden the country’s tax base.

It has also asked them to lead efforts for a more multilateral world by advocating for debt cancellation, democratisation of international institutions like the UN, the World Bank and the IMF and regulate corporations to ensure living wages and fair-trade practices.

The charity has further requested the next Government commit to climate justice by ramping up domestic climate action and providing greater financial support for countries in the Global South experiencing climate breakdown and related hunger and conflict.

“It’s time for governments to stop protecting billionaires and to prioritise investing in people. A fairer, more equal world is essential for a liveable planet, global democracy and the eradication of poverty. Urgent change is needed,” Mr Clarken said.