{"id":318694,"date":"2026-02-26T17:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/318694\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T17:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T17:54:09","slug":"richest-10-of-irish-households-command-almost-half-the-wealth-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/318694\/","title":{"rendered":"Richest 10% of Irish households command almost half the wealth \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wealthiest 10 per cent of Irish households now command almost 50 per cent of total household wealth in the State, Central Bank figures show.<\/p>\n

The net wealth of Irish households rose to a record \u20ac1.34 trillion in the third quarter of last year, equating to approximately \u20ac245,000 per person or \u20ac724,000 per household.<\/p>\n

The rise in wealth, detailed in the Central Bank\u2019s<\/a> latest quarterly household wealth statistics, comes despite a cost-of-living squeeze and reflects, in the main, higher property values.<\/p>\n

While positive, the figures highlight a very uneven distribution of wealth in the Republic with the total net wealth of households in the poorest half of the distribution accounting for just 8.9 per cent (\u20ac128 billion) of total household wealth.<\/p>\n

The richest 10 per cent of households held more than five times that amount, which equated to 49.2 per cent or \u20ac709 billion of total household wealth.<\/p>\n

The figures showed that the total net wealth of Irish households rose by \u20ac48.3 billion to stand at \u20ac1.337 trillion at the end of the third quarter of last year.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0We are told Ireland is getting wealthier \u2013 so why are households not feeling it?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThis represents a new series high, continuing the pattern of growth seen in recent years,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

The increase was driven by a rise in housing wealth, a function of rising housing prices, which increased by \u20ac31.1 billion to \u20ac905 billion. <\/p>\n

House prices rose by 7 per cent last year and by 8.7 per cent the previous year.<\/p>\n

Housing wealth now accounts for almost 68 per cent of total net wealth and 60.6 per cent of the total assets of Irish households. <\/p>\n

\"\"Could Trump\u2019s new global tariff scupper the US-EU trade deal?<\/p>\n

Household net worth is calculated by adding the total value of the housing stock and financial assets \u2013 such as cash savings, shares, pensions and possessions such as cars and antiques \u2013 and subtracting debt owed or liabilities.<\/p>\n

It is considered a crude measure of prosperity as it hides the distribution of household assets and liabilities across income groups and age categories.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland\u2019s total household wealth has hit \u20ac1.34 trillion, but most of it is concentrated at the top,\u201d Keith Butler, chief executive of Galway-based financial services group Ask Acorn, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost families have modest savings, if any at all, and it\u2019s just sitting on deposit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Central Bank figures indicated households\u2019 financial assets stood at \u20ac589 billion at the end of the third quarter and were mainly composed of currency and deposits (\u20ac218.6 billion) and insurance and pension entitlements (\u20ac272 billion).<\/p>\n

Total liabilities, mainly consisting of long-term loans, totalled \u20ac157.1 billion, an increase of \u20ac1.1 billion on the previous quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The wealthiest 10 per cent of Irish households now command almost 50 per cent of total household wealth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[20927,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-318694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-central-bank-of-ireland","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}