Buffet will not be buffeted by any looming financial storms

UNDETERRED BY exceptional volatility on the stock market and jittery economic conditions, the combined wealth of Ireland's billionaires has reached $20.2 billion (€13.15 billion).

New research by Forbes magazine suggests that two new members joined this most prosperous club last year. Mere millionaires not invited, mind you. This is a club in which the richest guy, Warren Buffet, has $62 billion near to hand.

The first new "Irish" member the ultra-rich group is a 78-year-old veteran of the business scene in India, Pallonji Mistry, who is virtually unknown in Ireland. The second is Denis O'Brien, a more likely candidate for membership.

Pallonji Mistry is owner of Mumbai-based construction firm Shapoori Pallonji and holds major stake in the Tata conglomerate. He has no less than $5 billion in the bank. He gained a place on the Irish billionaire list by dint of his new Irish passport, Forbes said. "[ He] recently became citizen of Ireland following wife and sons, who are Irish citizens."

There was no comment on the naturalisation process from Department of Justice or the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Big as Pallonji Mistry's bank balance is, it is no match for that of SeaQuinn and his family.

Forbes said the richest clan in Cavan now has $6 billion at its disposal, having added $1.5 billion in the past year. While that's enough to gain the prize as the wealthiest Irish representative, his place in the big league reaches no higher than 164.

The next Irish representative is John Dorrance III, US-born heir to the Campbell's soup fortune who received an Irish passport some years ago. Forbes says his fortune rose last year to $2.7 billion from $2.6 billion. He sold his Campbell stake in 1996, but there seems to be no threat to his inheritance.

Then there's financier Dermot Desmond, owner, says Forbes, of a fortune that increased last year to $2.5 billion from $1.8 billion. His biggest recent deal was the sale of London City Airport to a consortium that included Credit Suisse, GE and AIG.

Next comes Mr O'Brien, whose deft refinancing of his Caribbean mobile phone company Digicel helped bring his estimated fortune to some $2.2 billion. Mr O'Brien is engaged a long battle for control of Independent News & Media, but his rival Sir Anthony O'Reilly is on the march as well. Forbes said Sir Anthony's wealth rose by a handsome $100 million to $1.8 billion.

Forbes estimation of Mr O'Brien's wealth puts in him in a healthy fiscal place, but the bank balance fades into insignificance when compared with that of the world's second-richest man, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu.

Mr Slim has $60 billion. The significance of that for O'Brien is that Mr Slim's telecoms company is challenging Digicel for business in the Caribbean and central America.

But Mr Buffett's towers above all. His fortune grew by $10 billion to that more-than-healthy $62 billion last year, helping him to unseat his Microsoft pal Bill Gates as the world's richest man.

If that estimation embraces Buffet's net assets in light of the rising price of his shares in the Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, his actual annual earnings are counting more in millions than billions.

At a fundraiser last June for Hillary Clinton, Buffett made the point that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent in 2006 on earnings of $46 million, while his secretary was taxed at 30 per cent on a wage of $60,000. "If you're in the luckiest 1 per cent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 per cent."

The lucky Buffett is as good as his word. In 2006, he declared that he had irrevocably earmarked the most of his shares in Berkshire Hathaway to charity.

Mr Gates's fortune grew by $2 billion to $58 billion last year, ranking him the third richest man with more than enough to get by. In fourth place came Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, head of ArcelorMittal with a $45.0 billion fortune. Based in London, he is Europe's richest resident.

Another Indian businessman Mukesh Ambani is in fifth place with $43 billion in the bank. His brother Anil Ambani is in sixth, with $42 billion, but the two men are estranged.