I ask Deputies to bear with me. I inadvertently overlooked Deputy Paul Murphy, who would normally ask an appropriate short question.

The programme for Government contains a commitment to tackle inequality. Obviously, one could be forgiven for thinking it should refer to creating, deepening and worsening inequality. I am not sure if the Taoiseach has been watching the programme "Ireland's Rich List" on RTE 2. At the moment according to The Sunday Times rich list, there are 17 billionaires in Ireland - not multimillionaires, but billionaires. They include people like Denis O'Brien, Larry Goodman and the Dunne and Heffernan families.

The Deputy should refrain from naming people.

The question-----

I do not think anybody in here will be mentioned.

We are rich in spirit.

Does the Taoiseach believe that we should have billionaires in our society in this day and age? Given the levels of deprivation, the housing crisis and the climate crisis that needs investment, should we as a society have billionaires? If the Government is serious about tackling inequality, should the Government move to ban billionaires by having a 100% wealth tax on all wealth in excess of €1 billion? With that, it would be possible to build 150,000 carbon-neutral homes, transition to 100% renewable energy creating 36,000 jobs and have a complete transition to free, green and frequent public transport for the next 20 years.

The Deputy will find that many of those billionaires are not resident in the State. If one was to bring in a 100% tax for them, they definitely would not be resident in the State. The yield from any tax that is 100% is zero. Rather than bringing in revenue, we would probably end up with less. Anybody will understand that if something is taxed at 100%, one will not get any revenue out of it.

There are many forms of equality. There is equality before the law and I am proud to be part of a Government that helped to repeal the eighth amendment and helped to bring about marriage equality in the State. I am proud to be part of a Government that for five years has seen poverty and deprivation rates reduce in Ireland. According to the Central Statistics Office, income inequality in Ireland is now at its second lowest since records began. That is something that very few socialist governments have ever achieved.

Tell that to the homeless.

We are running a bit late but the Christmas greetings contributed somewhat to that.