Some Irish billionaires are "all fur coat and no knickers", Leo Varadkar has said, amid calls in the Dáil for a new wealth tax.

An Oxfam report published to coincide with the World Economic Forum at Davos found the top 1% of Irish society now holds a quarter of the country's wealth. But the Taoiseach questioned the legitimacy of that report, in response to calls from People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Richard Boyd Barrett to "introduce a wealth tax to start to redistribute so much huge wealth".

Mr Varadkar told the Dáil: "We all know from past experience that some people who are billionaires on paper, or appear to be billionaires, are actually all fur coat and no knickers. They have a lot of assets on paper. They also have a lot of debts and liabilities, and their actual net wealth is negative or small."

Taking the first Leaders' Questions of the Dáil term since returning to the office of Taoiseach, Mr Varadkar was yesterday forced to defend Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe, as well as Damien English, who resigned as a junior minister last week.

Mr Varadkar repeated his Government's commitment to transparency and confirmed oversight of ethics legislation and the Standards In Public Office Commission (Sipo) would be transferred to Finance Minister Michael McGrath, after Mr Donohoe recused himself from those duties.

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It comes as Mr Donohoe gave a statement in the Dáil yesterday over his failure to declare expenses for hanging election posters.

Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald accused Mr Varadkar's Cabinet of being "mired in scandal", while Labour leader Ivana Bacik said the issues faced by Mr English and Mr Donohoe "raise fundamental questions about the standards in public life".

Mr Varadkar responded that it was up to Sipo to make a judgment as part of its review, "to take it out of the political cut and thrust", and "to look at the information independently"