Anger as gaping gulf in wealth revealed

The front page of today's Irish Independent is running with the story: "Anger as gaping gulf in wealth revealed".

The story says there is "a new report from the Bank of Ireland (which) outlined how we (Ireland) now boast the second highest rate of millionaires in the world. Around 33,000 people are worth more than €1m - even when the value of their home is excluded. That is a jump of 10pc in the space of just one year".

The BOI report that the story refers to is "The Wealth of the Nation 2006", which has been reviewed in Geary by the financial decision-making team. David McWilliams mentioned this report in one of his articles last week: "Rich man, poor man divide merely breeds seething society of discontent". This is were the attention on the figures may be stemming from.

The figures are quite stark, as reported in another of today's articles in the Irish Independent: "The top one per cent of the population own 20pc of the wealth. The next four per cent have another 20pc. That leaves 60pc for the remaining 95pc".

With such massive wealth inequality, it may not come as a much of a surprise that, last week, the Irish Independent reported that most Irish people are living beyond their means. See story here. These findings come from the preliminary results for the long awaited Household Budget Survey 2004-05. The Irish Independent says that: "70pc of all households cannot cover their weekly expenditure from their regular income, with only the richest families bucking the trend".

But anyone feeling the pinch should rest assured, as the highest paid banker in the country says that he is "feeling your pain".