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Thread: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

  1. #1
    L'Etranger Senior Member Banquo's Ghost's Avatar
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    Default Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Well, stamp my vitals. That's a bit of a turnaround.

    The UK Times article.

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    The Irish join the world's wealthiest
    By Carl Mortished

    Rampant economic growth has put the Republic near the top of the league in net wealth per head

    THE Irish have leapt into the top tier of the world’s wealthiest citizens after a decade of rampant economic growth and soaraway property prices that has transformed household balance sheets in the Republic and created 30,000 millionaires.

    The average Irishman and woman is richer than an American, a Briton or a German, according to Bank of Ireland research into the nation’s wealth. Only the Japanese still rank higher in net wealth per head in the bank’s survey of leading OECD nations.

    Once the paupers of Europe, the Irish have rapidly moved to a place at the top table. Within just a decade, the personal net worth of the average Irish citizen has more than trebled from €46,000 to €148,000 (£102,000). The Irish are already comfortably ahead of their British neighbours, whose net assets are valued at €137,000 but still chasing the Japanese with an average net wealth of €206,000.

    Sales of businesses and property have created a new community of millionaires, which Bank of Ireland reckons number about 30,000, even after excluding the value of their main residence.

    Ireland’s wealthy are a new phenomenon, according to Mark Cunningham, head of private banking at Bank of Ireland. “It is first generational by nature, with the vast bulk having been created in the past ten years.”

    The main wealth driver is property values, which account for 64 per cent of total assets and have added some €450 billion to the nation’s balance sheet since 1995, an annual capital return of 19 per cent.

    The land was not always so valuable; postwar Ireland was an agrarian backwater and remained in the doldrums throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

    Capital transfers from the European Union helped to build Ireland’s infrastructure but the main growth motor has been fiscal reforms introduced in the 1990s and the foreign investment this brought in. Corporate tax rates of 12.5 per cent attracted a host of US multinationals, such as Dell, Microsoft and IBM, who found an educated and at that time cheap, English-speaking workforce.

    The workforce is now expensive and Ireland is transformed from an economy dependent on remittances from emigrants to an importer of labour from Eastern Europe for construction and waitressing jobs that the newly rich Irish now shun.

    Ireland’s sudden explosion of wealth, the extraordinary property inflation and an escalation in personal borrowing have fuelled fears of a bust. Within two years, household debt in relation to disposable income has risen from 93 per cent to 140 per cent but Bank of Ireland is sanguine about the risks, arguing that Ireland is simply catching up with the indebtedness levels of developed countries.

    The country’s unusual demographics more resemble that of an emerging Asian market economy than a European state and Bank of Ireland reckons that the stimulus of a higher birth rate and immigration will keep the Irish economy advancing at a brisk pace. Total household net worth will almost double to €1.2 trillion by 2015, the bank reckons.

    THE RICH LIST

    Net wealth per head (€)

    Japan 205,675
    Ireland 148,130
    United Kingdom 137,277
    United States 128,810
    Italy 125,512
    France 103,476
    Germany 90,462
    Canada 85,147

    THE NEW BREED OF IRISHMEN

    Sean Quinn & family
    Estimated worth: £2,000 million.

    Sean Quinn’s business career started 33 years ago when he turned the family’s dairy farm in Co Fermanagh into a quarry. Now 59, he heads the Quinn Group, one of Ireland’s most successful conglomerates, with interests in construction supply, glass and plastics manufacturing, insurance, hotels and pubs.


    Sir Tony O’Reilly & family
    Estimated worth: £1,377 million.

    Sir Tony O’Reilly’s portfolio stretches from a 26.2 per cent stake in Independent News & Media, where he is chief executive, to holdings in Waterford Wedgwood, the china and glass maker, Heinz, the American food company, and Eircom, the Irish telecoms group. Other assets include interests in hotels, art and homes. Sir Tony, a former professional rugby player, was knighted in the 2001 New Year’s Honours.


    Dermot Desmond
    Estimated worth: £965 million.

    Dermot Desmond, 56, has seen his primary asset, London City Airport, increase in value through its proximity to the 2012 Olympics venues. He also has stakes in the quoted Irish firms Greencore, Unidare, Ceva and Datlex and holdings in Manchester United and Celtic football clubs.

    Tony Ryan & family
    Estimated worth: £875 million.

    Tony Ryan, co-founder of Ryanair, and his sons used part of the £424 million earned from the sale of stakes in the airline to invest in two other transport companies. They hold 40 per cent of AeroBus, based in Mexico, and 16 per cent of Tiger Airways, based in East Asia. Family assets include a stud in Co Kildare.


    Denis O’Brien
    Estimated worth: £615 million.

    Denis O’Brien, chairman and 85 per cent owner of Digicel, the Caribbean’s largest mobile phone operator, reinvested in the company with some of the £175 million earned from the sale of his stakes in Esat Telecom, an Irish phone company, to BT. He also has investments in Communicorp Group, a European operator of radio stations. He owns the £40 million Quinta do Lago golf resort in Portugal.


    Frank Dunne
    Estimated worth: £507 million.

    Frank Dunne holds a £495 million stake in Dunnes Stores, a supermarket and clothing retail chain with 152 outlets in Ireland, Britain and Spain. The company is run by a family trust. He gained control after his brother was involved in a drug scandal in the early 1990s. Other assets include a stud farm in Co Meath.


    A lot of this is property of course, which is a bit inevitable on a small island. When my father inherited our land it was worth practically nothing, and you couldn't have given it away in the sixties and seventies. Now there's chunks that are worth a jolly sum.

    Still, nice to see that we've come a long way in a short time. Now I'd just like to see those of my countrymen who whine on about immigrants shut up. After all, it's pretty hypocritical for an Irishman to complain about someone who has immigrated from poverty to seek a fortune to send back home, don't you think? And maybe if we can share our opportunities as others shared them with our ancestors, they might eventually help their country succeed economically too?
    "If there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this one."
    Albert Camus "Noces"

  2. #2
    Clan Clan InsaneApache's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Growing up in Manchester in the '60s I was surrounded by Irish men and women, some first generation, a lot 2nd and 3rd.

    They had escaped to earn money in the UK. Nice to see that (thanks to the EU) the 'Mother' country is doing so well. On a side note, what are McAlpine going to do now?

    And then there was that lass called McCabe.....
    There are times I wish they’d just ban everything- baccy and beer, burgers and bangers, and all the rest- once and for all. Instead, they creep forward one apparently tiny step at a time. It’s like being executed with a bacon slicer.

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    Senior Member Senior Member Red Peasant's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    My great and great-great-grandparents moved from rural Irish starvation to urban English poverty. I don't think they had anything to send back to Ireland! Anyway, they weren't illegal or anything because they were moving from one part of what was then still Britain to another part; moving from one exploitation to another.

    Well done to Ireland though. I raise a glass of Beamish to ya!
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    Senior member Senior Member Dutch_guy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by The Article
    THE RICH LIST

    Net wealth per head (€)

    Japan 205,675
    Ireland 148,130
    United Kingdom 137,277
    United States 128,810
    Italy 125,512
    France 103,476
    Germany 90,462
    Canada 85,147
    Had no idea Italy was that rich, I thought Italy has always been infamous for it's distinct differences between rich and poor in the Country.


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  5. #5
    RIP Tosa, my trolling end now Senior Member Devastatin Dave's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Horray for Bono... er, I mean Ireland...
    RIP Tosa

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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
    A lot of this is property of course, which is a bit inevitable on a small island. When my father inherited our land it was worth practically nothing, and you couldn't have given it away in the sixties and seventies. Now there's chunks that are worth a jolly sum.
    Yea it's worth a fortune, my aunt's bit of land in Cork is now worth about 10 times as much as it was in the 80's. Problem is that alot of the Irish Ex-pats that want to go home to retire can't afford to due to the over inflated property market.
    “The majestic equality of the laws prohibits the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing bread.” - Anatole France

    "The law is like a spider’s web. The small are caught, and the great tear it up.” - Anacharsis

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    Join the ICLADOLLABOJADALLA! Member IrishArmenian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Good thing my mother and father (born in south east Kerry, near the Cork border) bought land before this. That would be terrible for him if he tried to buy later. Cheers for me da's old country!

    "Half of your brain is that of a ten year old and the other half is that of a ten year old that chainsmokes and drinks his liver dead!" --Hagop Beegan

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    Member Member thrashaholic's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    It's because of your lovely low (relative) corporation taxes; an example for the rest of the world: a nice vindication of low tax economic policy. Good on you.

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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    It's because of your lovely low (relative) corporation taxes; an example for the rest of the world: a nice vindication of low tax economic policy. Good on you.
    Low corporation tax as in zero tax for 10 years for foriegn companies , but that does give the problem of the companies packing up and leaving after 10 years . Most workers however get stung on the 40+% income tax .
    As Banquo pointed out in the opening post ,this jump in the wealth league is mainly down to vastly inflated property/land prices , similar to that in Britain just before the big crash . That is already leading to major problems and has resulted in a huge outflow of money from the country .

    Yea it's worth a fortune, my aunt's bit of land in Cork is now worth about 10 times as much as it was in the 80's.
    That must be very bad land Caravel , I could sell a plot today for 125,000+ that I only paid 3,500(in old money) for in '97 .

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    Member Member thrashaholic's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Tribesman
    It's because of your lovely low (relative) corporation taxes; an example for the rest of the world: a nice vindication of low tax economic policy. Good on you.
    Low corporation tax as in zero tax for 10 years for foriegn companies , but that does give the problem of the companies packing up and leaving after 10 years . Most workers however get stung on the 40+% income tax .
    As Banquo pointed out in the opening post ,this jump in the wealth league is mainly down to vastly inflated property/land prices , similar to that in Britain just before the big crash . That is already leading to major problems and has resulted in a huge outflow of money from the country .
    I meant low corporation tax as in the 12.5 %, which is lower than every other country in the EU except Cyprus. Such low relative taxes are bound to encourage both foreign investment and growth in domestic industry. Here's a nice link pour toi: http://www.idaireland.com/home/index.aspx?id=659

    Inflated land prices would have a major impact I agree, since land is, as I'm sure you're aware, generally people's most valuable asset (hence Thatcher's policy of selling people their council houses). I imagine that the 40% income tax doesn't really distort the figures because income isn't overly important wealth-wise. What I'd imagine is the most important factor though is consistantly high GDP growth figures (11% in 2000 I believe, a predicted 5% in 2006), these can't be attributed to land inflation alone (although land infaltion may be a result...).

    Either way, I prefer GDP per capita (PPP - when appropriate) to compare national wealth and living standards, and although Ireland is still doing jolly well on that front (in the big league, if you will) it certainly isn't second (and Japan isn't first)...

    Keep up the good work Ireland.

  11. #11

    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Tribesman
    That must be very bad land Caravel , I could sell a plot today for 125,000+ that I only paid 3,500(in old money) for in '97 .
    The "10 times" was not exact figures. I have no idea how much her land is worth, it probably cost thousands in the 70's and is now worth hundreds of thousands, but I do know that it's worth vastly more than it was anyway. It is pretty decent land, about 3 acres, and quite sought after for building plots, though my Aunt won't sell as she prefers to leave it wild.
    “The majestic equality of the laws prohibits the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing bread.” - Anatole France

    "The law is like a spider’s web. The small are caught, and the great tear it up.” - Anacharsis

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    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    That's excellent news, now can we please have our money back? No need to spend dutch EU money on that puppy anymore.

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    L'Etranger Senior Member Banquo's Ghost's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Fragony
    That's excellent news, now can we please have our money back? No need to spend dutch EU money on that puppy anymore.
    The glass is always half-empty for you, isn't it, Fragony?


    Just in case anyone wants to know the source of Fragony's pain, look here.

    Sample (2004):

    The Irish at €396 per capita in net receipts from the EU, were the highest in the EU15 while the Dutch headed the net payers at €125 per head. Greeks benefited by €377 per capita, Portugal by €298 and Spain by €200. Germany paid $87 per capita into the EU Budget.

    Last edited by Banquo's Ghost; 07-12-2006 at 09:32.
    "If there is a sin against life, it consists not so much in despairing as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this one."
    Albert Camus "Noces"

  14. #14
    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
    The glass is always half-empty for you, isn't it, Fragony?
    They took my glass. I know mia muca, I am just way to cynical for my age

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    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
    The glass is always half-empty for you, isn't it, Fragony?
    That´s positive thinking, isn´t it?
    My opinion is usually that the glass needs to be empty.


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    Old Town Road Senior Member Strike For The South's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Does it really matter? There just going to spend on unhealthy amounts of achool
    There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford

    My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

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    TexMec Senior Member Louis VI the Fat's Avatar
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    Default Re : Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    I say good for them. Knowing how well they'd put it to use, I would've paid Ireland twice as much EU funds over the past 30 years.

    Quote Originally Posted by Fragony
    That's excellent news, now can we please have our money back? No need to spend dutch EU money on that puppy anymore.
    You miss the point Fragony. We ARE getting our money back. There's more wealth to be made by trading with filthy rich paddies than there is to be made by robbing them down to the very last potato from the hands of their dying children.
    The EU is not about dividing the pie, it is about enlarging it for us all.

    Trade between France and Ireland has doubled over the past six years, thanks to a relatively high economic growth in Ireland.
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  18. #18
    master of the pwniverse Member Fragony's Avatar
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    Default Re: Re : Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
    I say good for them. Knowing how well they'd put it to use, I would've paid Ireland twice as much EU funds over the past 30 years.

    You miss the point Fragony. We ARE getting our money back. There's more wealth to be made by trading with filthy rich paddies than there is to be made by robbing them down to the very last potato from the hands of their dying children.
    The EU is not about dividing the pie, it is about enlarging it for us all.

    link
    Perhaps, but we pay way too much, I don't really feel like paying money for something as invisible and costly as the EU, the city of Amsterdam has more politicians then the european parlement, yet it costs a tiny little bit less. Free trade is fine and all, and it is fine because that is all 'europe' is, we don't need yet another government to do what the market does on itselve anyway(europeans prefer european products, what more can we ask?). The EU government is just a big fat slug sitting on top of a bucket with **** uphill. Just leave us be.
    Last edited by solypsist; 07-15-2006 at 05:23.

  19. #19

    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Husar
    My opinion is usually that the glass needs to be empty.
    You've never said anything along those lines.

  20. #20

    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    That's nothing.. :

    The average income for Jordanians per head is 4000$/year.. Can you compete with that ???
    "Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much."

    Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.

  21. #21
    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by GoreBag
    You've never said anything along those lines.
    You never asked...

    Quote Originally Posted by GoreBag
    Free trade is fine and all, and it is fine because that is all 'europe' is, we don't need yet another government to do what the market does on itselve anyway(europeans prefer european products, what more can we ask?).
    I´m not sure about the market doing that itself.
    Didn´t the whole EU thing start with some steel union?
    I don´t exactly remember the details, but to me that sounds like the roots are in the market and then it expanded.
    Some changes are probably necessary, but disbanding it completely may not be a good idea.

    Then again positive changes and disbanding stuff are things which almost never occur in modern politics.


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    Join the ICLADOLLABOJADALLA! Member IrishArmenian's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Strike For The South
    Does it really matter? There just going to spend on unhealthy amounts of achool
    To be quite honest, most cultures spend money on unhealthy amounts of alcohol. Isn't any amount of alcohol unhealthy? I am just looking at this from a different perspective, I do in fact drink, but it is a different culture than the U.S. I hear in the U.S.A., people drink to get drunk. that is not the case everyewhere else.

    "Half of your brain is that of a ten year old and the other half is that of a ten year old that chainsmokes and drinks his liver dead!" --Hagop Beegan

  23. #23
    Old Town Road Senior Member Strike For The South's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Meh its diffrent for everyone I have an Armenian Uncle. He may be impotent though he and my aunt love kids but dont have any. It makes one wonder
    There, but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford

    My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

    I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.

  24. #24

    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by Husar
    You never asked...
    Lies.

  25. #25
    Iron Fist Senior Member Husar's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ireland joins the world's wealthiest nations

    Quote Originally Posted by GoreBag
    Lies.
    Prove it.


    "Topic is tired and needs a nap." - Tosa Inu

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