In a report highlighting widening inequality globally, ahead of the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Monday, Oxfam Ireland said that 11 Irish billionaires saw their combined wealth rise 2 per cent last year to €46.3 billion.
The 3.46 million people that their combined wealth eclipses equates to about 85 per cent of the adults in the State and 63 per cent of the 5.46 million estimated usual residential population. Joe Brennan reports.
In her column, Pilita Clark says that powerful business leaders’ silence as US president Donald Trump pulls his country out of the UN’s 38-year-old Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – for fear of retribution – it says something about the state of democracy.
In our Q&A, a reader wonders if the terms of the State’s new auto-enrolment pension scheme will limit what they can invest in their private pension. Dominic Coyle offers a view. If you’d like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money, the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.
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The farm lobby’s decision to oppose the Mercosur trade deal could come back to bite it when the EU frames its next budget and looks at the €1.5 billion the sector here receives, writes our columnist John FitzGerald.
Company start-ups in Ireland surged by 11 per cent last year, hitting their highest level in over 15 years. Data from CRIFVision-Net shows nearly 25,000 new businesses were formed, driven by strong growth in agriculture, IT and construction. Joe Brennan also has the details.
Dave Kerr, founder of comparison website Bonkers.ie, says while Irish people have definitely become more “savvy” in their approach to changing financial services and utility providers, there is still a large expectation that loyalty is rewarded – even if it rarely is.
In Me & My Money, Paul Murphy, chief executive of Climeaction tells Tony Clayton-Lea that he “bought a boat a few years back. It cost roughly what a deposit for a small house would have.”
In our Opinion piece, Justin McCarthy argues that China has strategically positioned itself in the global food system over many years and that EU needs to do more to ensure it can continue to feed itself.
Donald Trump’s Fed threats have failed to spook markets – for now, writes Stocktake.
