The Ideas Campaign - latest sample of ideas received since campaign launch

Construction

Allow/encourage/facilitate the construction sector to operate three 8-hour shifts per day, especially on infrastructure projects (e.g. new roads) where there will be no/minimal disturbance from noise/light pollution during evening and night shifts. This will speed up these projects, and increase employment in the short term, and might get us over the hump until things start improving. It will also see us better placed to capitalise when the recovery comes.

Culture

Consideration should be given to insist that at least 10% of all advertising revenue for the TV channels should be directed towards the development of home produced TV programmes and films. This would incentivise the TV channels to commission home produced programmes, creating employment opportunities. This country needs a TV and film industry, and some people may think we have one, but it is based on exploitation and a hand to mouth existence.

Education

My idea is one that could solve the university fee problem as well as creating employment. It would be in the form of a government run ‘third-level credit’ scheme.

For at least a year after leaving school, students would work in community-service jobs such as: visiting elderly folk, cleaning beaches and forests, and earn credits for their college fund.

They could also receive a basic living wage and would have the option of working longer hours for extra pay if they wished. They would have to build up a minimum number of credits in order to secure their place. They could also receive credits based on their performance in transition-year projects and other extra-curricular achievements throughout their second-level schooling. Jobs would be created at a supervisory and management level.

In addition to saving families the burden of having to pay large fees, students would have more time to decide what they really wanted to study (or not) and there would be a natural opt-out from those who really didn’t want to attend college in the first place.

Education

There is much talk today of the importance the teaching of foreign language at primary level education, this would be a very expensive and yet a vital introduction as Ireland is currently ranked amongst the worst in Europe at learning foreign languages.  A stigma we need to change if we want to build up any sort of a reputation.

I propose that while the government is waiting to introduce it into the curriculum they should issue a recommendation to all schools to try and organise after school classes in languages such as Chinese, Spanish, and French etc. It would cost the government nothing, and all the principal or the teacher in the school would have to do is find a teacher to teach the language. The school could charge the teacher 2 euro per student per class they take. This would provide extra spending money for the school and a job for a potential unemployed person.

Green business

The generation of electricity from renewable energies, and wind energy in particular. Its biggest drawback is that the renewable energy is variable. Therefore storage and electricity interconnection to other markets are key.

I believe that the construction of several pumped storage hydro electricity plants, like Turlough Hill, would greatly increase Ireland’s security of supply and allow us to bring more wind energy onto the grid. The efficiency of these plants would be 60-70%, which would be more efficient than other alternatives such as storing the energy in a chemical form i.e. hydrogen, methane.

Innovation

In trying to set up a new business recently I experienced a delay with the Companies Registration Office of 3-4weeks to register the business name and provide documents - even if you submit new company or trading name details online. On contacting the CRO I understand that the turnaround time has been up to two months until recently. If any new business wants to open a bank account or register a .ie website they need these documents from the CRO first, so are at a virtual stand still. This does not encourage or assist new business in Ireland.

Therefore my idea to assist all new businesses setting up in Ireland is simple

1. Take the necessary number of people off the dole and give them a job in new business registrations in the CRO.
2. Define a service deadline (like any other commercial business) of 24hours processing time from the CRO for any new business registration. Every day lost for a new business is critical.

Innovation

This idea aims to address the difficulty we have with innovation in Ireland and to support our small companies to become more research intensive. At the core of the idea is that we need to develop our skills in the adoption and use of new technologies (not just their development for export) and the government has a responsibility to take a lead in this.

One of the significant challenges for the creation of innovative companies in Ireland is the lack of a local market - Ireland is not, with rare exceptions, an early adopter of new technologies or services.

We should aim to unlock the expertise in the civil and public services and encourage them to act as innovation partners by procuring innovation from small companies at the cutting edge of research - e.g. have the Gardai procure research projects to develop innovative security systems, have the Dept of Education procure research to design new innovative educational technologies, have the Dept of Health procure research into new medical products…

Industry can be encouraged to participate in this scheme by allowing money spent via this mechanism to count towards an R&D tax credit.

 (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Manufacturing

Waste to insulation. Turn waste and recycled glass into insulation in the form of foamed glass. We currently export waste glass for recycling.

Policy

I propose that there are no more Lotto ‘roll overs’ during this recession. If there is no winner of the weekly Jackpot the money should be allocated to a specific government department to reduce budget deficit. I am sure the people of Ireland would support this.

Policy 

There should be a national regulation that all energy and water monitoring systems in Irish buildings must be continuously monitored using low cost wireless technology, by 2011. This will result in a ‘live’ map of energy and water consumption in Ireland. Assuming a number of devices per building this will create a market demand which will help develop an indigenous wireless and industry in Ireland and make Ireland a leader in this field, if managed correctly.

(Ireland lead the world in trans-Atlantic wireless 100 years ago, we need another Marconi!!)

Policy

I work as a Garda. My colleagues and I spend a huge amount of time attempting to execute warrants. These arise out of unpaid fines issued in courts. The “offender” has been fined, say €100 or 5 days imprisonment in default of payment. They often ignore or forget to pay the fine and a warrant is issued.    

A Garda may accept payment of the fine, or the Garda can take the offender to prison to serve the sentence stated on the warrant. People are taken to prison for sums of money less than €100. This person then spends a few days in prison for non-payment of a relatively small amount of money.  Also, policy states I must take this person to prison by taxi!

I recently brought a man to prison for an unpaid fine in the region of €500. The taxi cost around €350! Never mind the cost of two Gardaí to accompany him. My suggestion is that people, on conviction, should provide their bank account details or a consent form for deductions to be made by their employer or social welfare department.

A direct debit/pay deduction at source could be consented to, which would allow that person to pay their fine at an agreeable amount over a given period. Even people in receipt of social welfare should be in a position to pay fines in a drip-feed manner. A person paying a mere €2 a week would have a €100 fine paid off within a year which is a lot quicker than many warrants in the present system. If the offender stopped payments before completion, a warrant could then issue and be executed as they are now. This would save countless Garda hours, prison places and the ridiculous scenario of using taxis to transport prisoners.

This would cost nothing to implement and could automatically eliminate tens of thousands of warrants executed by Gardaí every year. I hope this falls within the scope of your campaign. If not, please feel free to pass it on to anyone you fell may have an interest.

Retail

Encourage the removal of the copper coins, having the lowest denomination the 5 cent coin. This has to be a handling nightmare for retailers. I don’t believe their value exceeds their handling costs to both people and government. Although this might be hard to achieve because of Europe. It’s worth looking into.

Services (International)

As we cannot compete with low cost based manufacturing it is time that we look at exporting or providing business knowledge to the eastern European countries that are currently able to manufacture. What I mean by this is as follows; we set up an Irish company which hires the best minds available in every field of business from management right through to sales. 

As with most eastern European companies the majority of the management skills are developed from the old soviet style working system and this is a major hindrance to there expansion and work practices. The company would then negotiate a share holding in the company and provide all the relevant experience required to build the company up, producing a higher value on the company what this in turn will achieve for the Irish company is bring in revenue which is passed on to the economy in its self creating more jobs at home with the spending available to the staff and taxes and also as the company is expanding giving it a larger presence on the international stage thus giving it the snow ball effect and over a period of time a highly valuable Irish company which has an Irish workforce but works completely outside of the island.

Services (local)

Have a system whereby loss making companies can apply to stay open by employing university students on short term work experiences in fields generally related to their course subjects/expected career area, similar to UL’s co-op programme. Only loss making companies could qualify and any excess profit made would be given to the state. Students would be able to write off this work against student fees which are inevitably going to come in. The state benefits by having the permanent workers still in work instead of paying unemployment benefit. Students benefit by getting relevant, hands on experience and potential employment prospects with these companies when the economy turns around and would pay less college fees

Technology

LED based lights present a much more efficient and cost effective solution which can not only save the public money in the long run but will also pay for the roll-out across the country. There should be an immediate ban on the purchase of any incandescent light bulbs for street lamps, if one breaks; it’s replaced with an LED based bulb instead. A program needs to be implemented to convert all street lamps to use LED bulbs.

Benefits - drastically reduced electricity costs (up to 88%) in some instances

- LED Bulbs have a much longer lifespan than incandescent bulbs

- Reduced ongoing maintenance costs (the bulbs are practically indestructible)

- Reduced carbon emissions to help us with our EU targets

Tourism

Our tourism product is in need of development and diversification in an era when Irish weather has become (even more!) unpredictable, prices are high by international standards, and low airfares and packages are available to a myriad of destinations with at least semi-guaranteed good weather.

Hotels need to be proactive and organise more themed weekends (from mystery weekends to ballroom or ceilí dancing to bridge) to tempt people away for a winter break at affordable prices. Heritage tourism and specifically-themed tourism packages need to be further developed and promoted. In general, we need a far better selection of tour products … at the moment, the only well-known options are the high-priced luxury hotel based bus tours (mostly availed of by American visitors) and the very successful Paddywagon tours which are geared mostly to backpackers.

Shorter 2 / 3 day bus tours, with good standard but more affordable accommodation, need to be developed. Or why not offer, for example, the facility to book a variety of tours of Ireland using your own car, where the supplier books you into suitable accommodation each night and provides you with a range of itineraries / options for each day (based on your stated interests) to choose from as you travel by easy stages around the country / your chosen region? For those coming from abroad, a hire car might be an optional part of the package.

Transport

The Idea: “car pooling” is famous and successful wherever it was applied. This is in practice for many other developed cities.

The solution: Provide the permission to use the bus lanes for cars which carry 3 or more adults during busy hours. How it works: Find people from the neighbourhood or on the route that has a similar destination and share the car with them. When the passengers are 3 or more they can use the bus lanes to reach their destination. This can be done creating a website for people to find their fellow passengers.

Benefits:

1. If 4 people are sharing a car, this will take 3 cars off the road during busy hours. I have noticed that 90% of the cars, using the city roads in the morning, carry a single person. When 3 cars are off the road 3 parking spaces will be created in city. Three car spaces will be created on the road. Fewer cars means less pollution to the environment. Less petrol will be used. Fewer cars on the road, means traffic will move faster.

2. Each week each person can bring the car so that they all can share the cost equally without paying to each other

3. The single parking space can be used for all four cars. The less demand for parking spaces will also bring down the parking charges and waiting time to park vehicles.

4. While travelling to city I have also noticed that the bus lanes are free most of the times. The taxi’s do take only 15 or 20 minutes to reach city in the morning. If people are allowed to use bus lanes they can reach their destination in good time, which will definitely contribute to production hours. More production means more income generation.

* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Transport

In the US, you can turn right at a red light (In our case, left). This could have the effect of freeing up traffic, shorter journey times for deliveries, and a positive impact on the environment with less stationary engines turning over.

The Ideas Campaign - latest sample of ideas received since campaign launch

All island economy

A recession is not necessarily a bad thing as it weeds out inefficiencies and those businesses that survive will be more efficient, productive and profitable. The Irish State must be viewed as a business. We the taxpayers do not pay taxes just to provide jobs. We pay taxes so that services are administered.

We need to get more value out of our public service. This means we need a measurement stick with definitive key performance indicators (KPI’s) which every section of our public sector needs to be measured against.

Lastly the economic downturn is affecting everyone and we are seeing people from all walks of life on the dole. Our government speaks of re-educating our workforce and the country is awash with empty office space.

Why not take the better educated in our society i.e. architects, engineers, and accountants etc and put their teaching their skills to those out of work in these unused office buildings.

Construction

After the property boom there are a number of housing estates whose upkeep is the responsibility of estate management companies or the estate property developers.

There are many recorded cases where these management companies do not fulfil their responsibility for cutting green areas, maintaining walkways and other general up keeping duties.

The consumer ombudsman could establish guidelines of minimum standards for upkeep and when these standards are not met that fines be imposed on the property developer/management company.

In extreme cases the ombudsman could insist that the estate be handed over to the local authority and that the fee for this is paid immediately by the offender.

Green business

Any PC that does not need to be on should be turned off at the end of the user’s day. This could result in a saving of approximately 10 - 50 euro a year. Virus and other PC updates that are normally run at night should be run at lunchtime instead.

Education

How to provide greater efficiency in education:

a. Index each school according to its socio-economic status e.g. average net income per family. Set targets for measurable educational performance e.g. scores on standardized literacy, numeracy tests based on the index.

Teachers should be paid by results achieved by students i.e. a flat rate plus bonus for achievement.

Result: increased work by teachers, increased performance by students, better economy.

b. Teachers often complain of an over-crowded curriculum i.e. they don’t have time to cover various areas effectively. A solution here would be to extend school opening hours. School opening hours are often treated as maximum hours for school operation, when they should be treated as minimum hours. Teachers could be compensated for this by a pro rata reduction in tax. Provide greater mobility for teachers to work between schools rather than being confined to one school.

c. Ensure alignment between current and emerging needs of industry and education courses and have a monitoring agency to ensure this.

* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Innovation

With increasing numbers of people requiring the unemployment benefit, why are we not using these people and resources to build back up our economy? We need to gather a database of volunteers who are claiming the unemployment benefit but still want to still work.

Many of them are highly qualified and currently bored sitting at home without any work. We should introduce a mentoring/volunteering or training type role and introduce them to new start up companies that require many of these services; IT, sales, accounting.

People can then get extra credit/benefits or even just some experience for their CV when they choose to volunteer. It’s also a great networking tool where local people and companies can help each other out.

Action: Create a website

1. Add entry point for volunteers. Choose sector - give brief bio of experience and hours that they are willing to give.

2. Add entry point for people/companies that require help - they choose sector - can view profile of volunteers experience and choose to get to contact with these people.

The website can then rate volunteers and gives feedback and the website can have levels of involvement required (full time, x days, part time, consultant). For example: New start up companies required IT person for 4 weeks to build website.

Policy

This idea is a workable transparent means for local authority funding that should be a ‘win win’. The idea is simple and as follows; that the existing method of levying local authority rates should be abolished because it has resulted in a property tax which was never the intention.

It also places rural local authorities in a very vulnerable position in the current climate because of business closures.

Revenue should be empowered to centrally collect local taxes by way of percentage of turnover as with VAT. Businesses such as medical, dental & chemists with a guaranteed turnover, legal, accountancy, etc are currently deprived of paying their fair share of local authority rates, yet their clients many of whom are in the overburdened service industry are struggling to survive.

Policy

Issue: The amount of people buying houses is quite low as they fear the house price will go down in value once they buy it and so are waiting for prices to hit the bottom.

Solution: The government should buy up these available houses and sell them to the people at a discounted price. These houses could be bought in large quantities at a lower price as developers are eager to sell.

Benefits:

• People would begin to purchase again.
• House prices would begin to balance out.
• People would not be renting but have a place to call their own.
• Developers would be in a position to repay their loans
• Banks would increase profit through mortgage increases
• Banks share price would in turn increase
• With houses selling and the property market improving it would create some employment in the construction industry
• Marginal increase in value of properties would help those in negative equity
• Increase in mortgages would mean increase in revenue for the government
• More jobs for valuers for pricing homes

Policy

We, as employers are constantly bombarded with TV and radio campaigns warning of the dire consequences of submitting late tax returns. In addition it seems we are penalised personally for becoming employers by being denied the same social welfare benefits that employees get.

I have lived abroad and having worked as an employee I discovered that other countries encourage people to set up their own business and give tax breaks for those willing to do so.

I think a system should be put in place to reward those who create employment. After all it is the employer who collects and submits the employee’s taxes on behalf of the government and it appears that in this country you would be mad to become an employer due to the way that penalties go with the position and also the rights employees have nowadays.

Quite simply if you have a good employee you will look after him/her and ensure they are happy with their job.

There is no need for the anti employer measures that enable an employee to almost do what he/she likes knowing that the LRC will award them money should they leave or be fired.

Policy

In order to increase work, the population and jobs, the government must revise its policy towards immigration and naturalisation.

Instead of deterring people going out of Ireland, they must encourage people to stay and fill all the necessary jobs in the country where the Irish are reluctant to fill.

For example, because the government does not have a proper legislation governing residents from other EU and non-EU countries, people are forced to emigrate to other countries (like Australia, Canada and New Zealand) that have a much more stable legislation on citizenship, working visas and immigration.

Additionally, the government could allow people who have tourist visas to apply to work in Ireland. Even small jobs such as catering, bartending in the tourism industry, maintenance work like those that would only require a two week contract. This would attract many people from other countries to come visit Ireland.

Services (international)

Based on the model of the IFSC we should set up an International Marketing Services Centre. International brands such as Coca Cola, Dove, Ford and Sony run international marketing campaigns as well as local marketing campaign. These international campaigns are planned and created in and deployed from various global centres such as New York, London, Milan and Tokyo.

They use a wide range of international marketing services including above the line advertising (planning, creative and media buying), below the line direct marketing, digital and sponsorship. Many of these international agencies already have a presence in the Irish market.

Using a similar tax incentive model to the IFSC we should entice these global marketing agencies to relocate their international marketing teams here.

The creation and implementation of a campaign employs hundreds of high end skilled people such as planners, account directors, account executives, creative teams, producers, and digital programmers and media planners.

We could offer international marketing teams incentives to create and run these global campaigns out of Ireland.

There are hundreds of international brands and agencies spending billions of euro running international campaigns. Ireland could become the leading global centre for International marketing. There is the potential to create thousands of jobs for Irish graduates. International marketing is a skilled profession. Perfect for an open economy such as ours.

* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Sport

More mountain bike and running trails need to be added to our forests around the country. There is a fantastic facility in Ballyhoura in Limerick but more are needed. Individual sports such as adventure racing and triathlon are achieving double digit growth in Ireland.

We have excellent natural resources all around. Jobs will be created in the construction, maintenance and marketing of these trails. There are huge health and tourism benefits to be realised. The Finns, Scots and Kiwis lead the field in this regard. Coillte have an excellent recreation policy in place but more funding is needed to realise the potential of these resources.

Sport

Low cost self-esteem boost - support for economically/socially disadvantaged people to train for and run a marathon. I have got great satisfaction from training for and running marathons. Apart from health benefits, the training is a great stress release, gives a structure and an achievable goal.

We also read in running magazine stories of people who have found running helped get through difficult times, e.g. bereavement, and one man even credits it with keeping him off drugs. The idea would involve a small financial contribution in the form of basic running kit including shoes (about €100) and the race entry fee (about €50).

Training could be provided under a FÁS scheme, perhaps bringing in trainee or qualified physical therapists or physical education teachers. Volunteers from running clubs and sports clinics could provide training, mentoring and education, e.g. on stretching to avoid injury. Anyone can run, even if they are terrible at other sports, and that is part of the appeal. It needs little equipment and no gym membership. All it takes is determination (and shoes).

The benefit is the reward of setting a goal, putting in the work and achieving it, which could be a first for many people who have not had the opportunity to succeed at something before.

Sport

Let’s get outside in the evenings and at weekends and revive our parks. Going out for a walk, a run, for sports or to play with the kids is free, sociable, and healthy.

It could really boost our quality of life, sense of community and reduce our expenditure on healthcare and organised entertainment. Tag rugby has got lots of people out of the pub and into the fresh air. We need more initiatives of this kind and more city and county council pitches devoted to new, inclusive pursuits.

Tourism

Ireland has significant opportunities in tourism. Ireland has a very rich history that touches upon multiple facets of life. Several others commented on “themed tourism” packages.

As a U.S. citizen who has travelled numerous times to Ireland (and now, a tax-paying resident in the Republic of Ireland), I can tell you that such themed tourism ideas would work very well for tourists coming from the U.S.

• Tourism theme examples:
• Archaeological tours
• Traditional Irish Music tours
• Irish Christian History tours
• General Irish history tours
• Surfing, Sailing, other water sport tours.
• Photography, visual artist tours

Tourism

My idea is another idea about speciality tourism. Saint Valentine is buried in Whitefriar Street in Dublin. I don’t understand why this fact is not harnessed as a tourism product by Dublin Tourism.

I am aware that the Japanese are quite knowledgeable about Saint Valentine’s association with Dublin, but generally, tourists appear to be unaware of it. To my mind, there is enormous scope for developing a romance tourism product with this idea.

If we can create a tourism product for Saint Patrick in the Saint Patrick’s festival, then why can’t Dublin create a similar tourism product for Saint Valentine? I believe it would give a great tourism boost mid winter.

Tourism

Increase dramatically the input from women (including public forums / TV programmes) in the design of hotels, bars and restaurants. It is so obvious that all these things are designed by men. Women know what is ideal for families, for couples, for single women.

Even families with high incomes have family holidays independently in caravans because hotels do not provide for their needs. Smaller details of design are important also such as insufficient lighting in rest rooms, coat hooks to hang one’s coat! When designing they should think of the person and their reason for entering a public hostelry.

What about the person who does not drive and comes in from the elements with coats and shopping bags? What are their immediate needs?

What about ideas to make a person’s stay, however brief (such as a cup of coffee in a cafe), more pleasant and comfortable? And when will we learn not to charge tea/coffee by the cup! People should be able to get fill ups for free!

* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Transport

An all Ireland rail system would generate millions of euro to the Irish economy through tourism and it would encourage the decentralisation of business in Dublin and Belfast.

If we could redevelop and expand the rail system introduced by the British years ago it would drive business and tourism into rural areas that are suffering terribly.

To date most tourists rarely see past Dublin or Belfast but beautiful areas such as Kerry, Donegal, Cork , Mayo etc are overlooked due to the poor infrastructure and long travel time required to get to these regions.

Ireland is a tiny nation with so much to offer outside of the capitals, a new rail system would drive business throughout the country and open up access points to the country outside of the two major cities.

Agriculture and food

Encourage people to grow their own food by encouraging farmers to lease allotments to people living in urban areas. This would reduce the amount of food having to be imported.

Education

I think a campaign should be started to encourage businesses to invest in colleges and universities. This could be done by means of sponsorship. If, after first year in college, businesses could be invited, or show an interest in viewing student transcripts or CVs from students.

Businesses could then offer to sponsor selected students until they finish college, while working for the company part-time, over the summer, or on work placement during their course and set down in contract that the student must work for the company for a certain amount of years after graduation.

This would benefit the students, and benefit the companies as after 3/4 years, they would have an employee ready for work, fully trained and with the relevant experience within the company. It could be agreed with the university through a contract that the company will pay a certain proportion more for the privilege of selecting these students. This might then alleviate some of the huge costs that universities face every year, or towards lowering the costs of fees.

This would then go a long way to creating an even more knowledge based economy. The quality of degrees would increase and we would have a highly skilled workforce available. With our low tax rates, multinationals would arrive here knowing that they will be guaranteed highly qualified and skilled employees.

The colleges would gain from the sponsorship, the students would gain from the sponsorship, the company would gain from the sponsorship. It would also help those students who might otherwise not be able to afford the high costs of attending college.

Green business

Every town in Ireland with a population of over 8,000 should have a local biogas supply initiative in place. Organic waste collected from restaurants, hotels, fast food and domestic households can be used to feed the biogas units, even farmers can grow plantations to feed it. Biogas is produced and the gas can be tanked and resold to local restaurants, hotels, nursing homes to fuel its heating or cooking units.

Jobs would be created in the construction, maintenance and running of the facility. Marketing and administration jobs would be created along with a nationwide spare parts support centre. Fabrication work and many technical high end support jobs would be created through this. It would be a lot better than sucking it out of the ground from some part of Russia!

Ireland can then be a leading example for other countries and can export manufactured units. It would also reduce our reliance on imported fuel and increase our own sense of energy security.

Green business

My idea is that all energy providers be obliged to provide a smart meter installed in the house or business premises so that the user would be able to monitor and reduce their usage of energy. I have dealings with hundreds of factories using machines, some of which are left running all day, even when not being used. The smart meter would very quickly emphasise the wastage of energy. The cost of supplying and installing the meters would be added to the customer’s bill and paid over a period of say 2 years.

Green business

Energy Efficiency: Driving around Ireland at night, you will see 100’s of opportunities for energy saving in premises who leave excessive lights on at night.

An example of Fingal County Council offices in Swords which are often alight late into the evening with nobody occupying (bar security personnel). Why not establish a website where people can submit observations on this energy wastage. Run by Dept of Energy, all it would need is: - Location - Date/Time - Observation etc.

It is a little “big brother” ish but I’m sure many business owners would be happy to receive the feedback on car park lights/display lights/office lights being left on incorrectly.

Website management could then forward the feedback onto relevant parties. Website named along the lines of: www.lightsout.ie or similar.

Green business

Based on a recently touted idea, but developed somewhat, I suggest an Alternative Fuel on Hire Purchase Scheme.

Yep - that’s right, an AFoHPS! Alternative energy sources, be it solar panels, mini-wind turbines, wood pellets etc., will reduce energy costs as soon as installed, so a monthly ESB bill might now be 60 euro instead of 100. [This money saved (40 euro) could be given to an investor on a monthly basis, who will have paid the initial cost of installation - not simply a grant, but the full cost].

Only an investor able to await this delayed payment, (possibly up to twenty years) which naturally includes a reasonable premium could underwrite such a proposal of course - if it has to be the State, so be it.

The household is paying money they would have been paying anyway, jobs are created and all that implies, reduced dependency on oil etc and the investor realises a profit.

Innovation

Reduce the cost and complexity of patenting - or actively support and subsidise it, thus encouraging established and budding inventors/entrepreneurs ultimately developing the creative economy.

Furthermore if patenting in Ireland was a more supported endeavour than elsewhere, many new products, improvements and technologies would at least start here, some of which may move on to being developed and even produced here also.

Manufacturing

There are skills and factories vacant and machinery lying idle which can be used with small adaptation: re-open Mallow beet factory and Carlow sugar factories, encourage farmers to grow beet once again, use these factories to produce bio fuel (beet, high sugar/starch content) for use in industry and cars.

Skills in textile factories: farmers grow flax, bamboo for production of textiles, adapt for use as insulation, and use same factories for production of sheep wool insulation.

Chipboard factories: adapt machinery to use raw materials to make wood pellets, as most of the pellets used here are imported, cut down on air miles and bring product closer to consumers, encouraging use of wood pellet burners.

State on all such products, whether from home or abroad the travel miles required to bring to place of sale, and apply a legitimate “fuel surcharge” on imported product, thereby encouraging home advantage.

Manufacturing

I am currently 15 years old and I think it would really be cool to manufacture wireless headphones. You could put your mp3 or ipod in your pocket and the ear pieces go in your ears but there is no wires connected to them.

The ear pieces could work along the lines of a wii remote the ear pieces will probably need to use batteries like the little round ones that go in calculators.

You could make cool designs for them to make teenagers buy them, they would probably have to come with a specially made mp3 with a built sensor bar and they could all come in a cute box that you can carry wherever you go.

Policy

I work as a GP in Dublin. From my training days in the UK in the early nineties, I was encouraged to prescribe medicines generically and not by trade name. I understand there is legal onus there on pharmacists to dispense the cheapest version of a drug, when prescribed by its generic name rather than by its trade name e.g. amoxicillin instead of amoxil.

The drug company mark up on drugs prescribed by trade name can be up to double the price of the cheapest alternative. At no stage, since my return to practice here in the past 15yrs, have I had direction in this regard from the HSE or seen any hint of similar legislation being considered.

This is something that would take little to resolve yet save hundreds of millions potentially each year. There should be collaboration between the HSE and the Irish College of General Practitioners to encourage this.

Small point - big saving.

Policy

The government raised children’s allowance in this country because childcare crèche prices were so high. In my opinion I think they should bring back down the children’s allowance and make crèches reduce their prices.

Policy

I would suggest that if a tax incentive, or tax free allowance were granted to anyone who creates a new job for someone on the live register, they get a tax free allowance for it, or tax credit.

For example, if an employer takes on someone off the live register, and pays them, say €30,000 per annum, they would get a tax credit of say, €3,000, so if they employ two people they would get a tax credit of say, €6,000, and so on.

This would mean that every person employed off the live register will save the state their cost to the exchequer, they are then tax paying citizens, and it is a double positive for the economy. It would also mean that employers who are employing people on the black economy, to regularise those jobs, creating more tax revenue for the state.

It could also be used to encourage those very high earners, who pay little tax in the state, to keep their money in the country, and create employment.

Policy

I work for a government body and I can honestly say that there is a great deal of waste in virtually all government departments. The culprit, I think, is the fear that if a budget is not spent, then the budget of that department will be reduced for the following year and the unspent money will be “lost” to the department.
My idea is simply to allow a department that under spends to roll-over a percentage of the unspent money to the following year with a small reduction for the following year.

For example, if Department A has a budget of 100,000 and they under spend by 10,000, then Department A should have its budget left unchanged and have 80% of the money rolled over into the following year’s budget. So, in the example, Department A would have 8,000 rolled to the next year and 2,000 returned to the “general” account for the agency.

This excess could be used to reduce debt (government agencies are often in debt as they operate in arrears as they await grant funding, etc.) for the agency or returned to the exchequer. As most budgets have been cut pretty harshly, this might be a way to get a “free” cut in spending.

Also, it allows each department to decide where they can cut rather than to have swingeing cuts made randomly at Ministerial level. Virtually every agency has fat–but it can be difficult to cut this at a national level. It’s easier to let Ministers set priorities and let the people on the ground find the savings in everyday items.

If such a policy was enacted, there would be annual surpluses in a number of agencies which could act as a cushion going forward. If an agency saved 100,000 in 2009, 90,000 in 2010 and 50,000 in 2011…it might be several years before the agency’s budget would need to be increased to account for future inflation.

Retail

I believe my idea would help shoppers, small producers and provide a low cost business opportunity for entrepreneurs. I call my idea ‘Order and Collect’.

If you could go to a location which had an ‘Order and Collect’ outlet. This could be in a community centre, a post office or even a neighbour’s house. You could order your shopping from an online catalogue have it delivered to that location and collect it and pay for it later.

Customers would benefit from an ‘Order and Collect’ outlet because they would have a choice of thousands of products at one location, they would not have to wait at home for delivery, they would save on delivery charges and they would not have any security worries about online payments.

Small producers would benefit, because they could service hundreds of customers at one location saving on delivery costs to individual addresses. They could get payment on delivery. ‘Order and Collect’ would provide a low cost business opportunity for entrepreneurs.

It could be located in a local shop or even in someone’s home. I believe ‘Order and Collect’ would have the advantages of internet shopping while allowing the customer to deal with a person. Many people shop on the internet and it is one area of retail that is growing. Many people have home based businesses using eBay or Amazon.

Social and voluntary

I am supportive of single mothers being supported in the early stages of their child’s life, but to have the single mother income continue until the child is 18/22 is ridiculous from many aspects. It kills entrepreneurship and implants in the child a lack of ambition.

We should help these mothers in the early days to get back on their feet, to get back into education and to get back into the workplace. This would save the economy many, many millions per annum and that money could be used to reinvest in children’s education and in adult education.

Apparently a single mothers ‘package’ is equivalent to 44k per annum when you add up all of the benefits. This is workable for the first few years - maybe until the child goes to primary school, but then it should end and that mother should be helped in every way to return to work/education.

This is key for influencing the next generation - so that they can break out of the welfare cycle. This benefit in its current format kills any incentive to work and provide. Other countries do this - they help the mother in the early years and then they get them going again.

Sport

Two of the big problems facing this country are: unemployment and obesity in children. We have 1000s of active sportsmen/women (some up to the standard of inter county GAA and LOI) unemployed. Why not have a schools programme run where these individuals would be allotted to schools (3 to 4 per school) and they would receive a top up on dole payment for periods of 15-20 hours a week training school teams.

There would be no requirement for an additional layer of management of such a scheme as school principle could monitor and sign off on the hours while teachers would be freed up to focus on core educational activities.

I’m sure that you could involve GAA, rugby and soccer bodies to part finance scheme as well. The gains would be more kids in sport and less active young men/women who have long hours and nothing to fill their time with.

You could even look at expanding whereby the people involved in the scheme liaise with existing school teachers to expand their own skill set (foreign languages/sciences/IT etc) in scheduled classes. E.g. you have 5 sports trainers who 1 or 2 days a week, have French lessons with existing French teacher in the school.

Technology

My idea has the capability to become a wireless access point allowing local wireless networks to expand coverage to weak areas which need camera coverage as well as a powerful Internet access point. In fact, this wireless camera can be programmed to “daisy chain” for several stages which can add up to miles of coverage.

Every shop on the main street has two discreet cameras fitted outside their premises, one looking left, crossing the camera looking right in this way you will pick up movement in both directions. Built into this IP camera is a wireless router thus hopping the wireless signal up to 200m down the street to the next premises with the same set-up.

The advantage of this setup is that each business owner has full access to the cameras located on their own premises only through standard internet connection. From my research in this area the time spent by Gardai collecting tapes and files from individual business CCTV systems is very time consuming, Gardai could be given rights to access all cameras in the scheme and view footage through a browser without leaving the office.

There are obvious benefits for towns and cities in employing a wireless network. Public safety can be improved with wireless CCTV cameras which can quickly be deployed to crime hotspots. Wi-fi can also play a role in monitoring parking, traffic flow management for street wardens. “People will take it up; they just don’t want to be paying a fiver an hour”.

The cost of the deployment will be partly paid for by ads on the Wi-Fi hotspot landing page which should be free to the end user who wants to use the Wi-Fi hotspot. The mains power for powering the cameras would be paid by the business premises and in return they would get discounted fibre broadband to their business.

(This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons)

Tourism

I am an Irish born Canadian senior citizen who returns to Ireland frequently. Unlike Irish seniors residents I have to pay on buses etc. I am not complaining.

But here is my plan: give every senior citizen visitor from every country free travel on buses and trains. How much can it cost? Buses and trains are half full most of the time anyway. You would be deluged with visitors.

It would be a case of spending a penny to make a pound. Cards could be issued at the point of entry by immigration officers or at some other point.

Many visitors spend relatively little on transportation and the forgone fares could be recouped ten times over by the other industries associated with tourism.

Agriculture and food

It should be noted that nutrition was optimal in the UK during the 2nd world war with rationing. With the present epidemic of maturity onset diabetes and obesity, I suggest putting VAT on processed and packaged foods, and high energy and carbonated drinks, leaving only vegetables, fruits and non-processed meat and fish free from VAT.

Agriculture and food

Develop a national “Ireland” food brand. This national brand could be licensed by private food companies for selling into foreign markets. This brand would enable all quality products, sourced and manufactured in the Irish food sector, to be sold in an effective and efficient manner.

The brand would be managed by a private company, which would have expertise in the area, under contract from An Bord Bia. We see brands such as Waterford Crystal being lost to international buyers. The value of Irish brands must be protected and leveraged to our own advantage.

Agriculture and food

We should not be importing so much of our vegetables and fruit. Importing especially from long distances not only leaves a carbon footprint but is also a drain on the economy. Farmers and horticulturists should be actively encouraged.

Why are we importing carrots from Holland, broccoli from Spain, garlic from China to name but a few when we could be growing all these ourselves? One of the major costs in the production of vegetables and fruit is that of labour.

Workers on jobseekers allowance and school leavers could be encouraged into this area and wages subsidised. This would also help people to expand their skill base while encouraging us to return to our agricultural roots.

Construction

As has been shown, the dependence on a ‘Services’ based economy is not working, as there is no indigenous manufacturing or product sales (outside of agriculture) to underpin it. We must start making things that people will buy overseas - real things - and not just bits of paper that we pass around which are essentially valueless (insurance/debt/house prices etc).

What I propose is a massive, national investment in a product which we have aplenty, and is increasing; is free in its raw state and is now worth more globally per litre than oil - FRESH WATER!

Like Lemass did in the 50’s, we need to invest large sums into ‘damming’ some of our (otherwise non-productive) upland areas - hills with glaciated/v-shaped valleys, which are common in places like West Cork & Kerry. We then use Hydro-Electric power (existing technology) to make electricity which powers the pumps required to fill tanker ships and filter the water.

Using ideal natural assets such as Bantry Bay, (the 2nd deepest natural harbour in the World), we can fill up huge amounts of water & ship them direct to Europe & Southern Europe (even the UK need is in the South!).

As Global Warming continues, Europe will on the whole be drying up, while we in Ireland are forecast for more rain! The price of this valuable commodity is only going one way - up, and we are ideally placed to take advantage of it. We may not even have to treat it to very high standards here - why can’t we filter it; send it off to Europe and treat it on arrival?

It would be a lot cheaper! The Capital Expenditure would initially be high, but it would give a massive labour boost to all the construction workers who are currently unemployed, and would pay ever increasing financial dividends in years to come. Leading the way in water technologies, using our Universities for R&D, could provide valuable spin-offs; provide high end jobs and still produce ‘real’ products instead of services.

* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Construction

Review the entire process for the granting of planning permission. We have cash rich viable private individuals with proven track records in construction and development and they are being strangled by bureaucracy and the small mindedness of our planning department.

If they are willing to take a risk in the current climate and provide employment, then they should be not only be allowed but encouraged. Guidelines should apply but not the stranglehold that is currently choking our economy.

Construction

Rent to buy in the second hand house sector - to get the property sector moving again.
(1) The potential buyer and seller agree on a price that will be fixed over a lease period of 2 or 3 years.
(2) The buyer leases the property at an agreed monthly rent.
(3) At the end of the lease period the buyer has the option to purchase the house at the agreed price and if he does, 75% of the rent paid over the period goes towards the deposit.

This way the seller gets liquidity during the recession while the buyer gets to try the location, build up a deposit and potentially buy the house at below market value (if the market recovers in the 2/3 year period).

Otherwise, the buyer can release the option at the end of the period. Particularly suitable for buyers who want to trade up and have a fall back property, but requires government regulation.

Education

At the moment, there seems to be a lot of unease that the money being poured into science and technology is not necessarily translating into more jobs in this sector. Part of this problem is due to the fact that professors and researchers in third level education are, through no fault of their own, usually focused more on pure research as opposed to industrial R&D. Thus, the students who do PhD’s under them tend to be less industry-oriented than the government would like them to be.

One solution to this would be to introduce a system similar to that in the UK whereby a so-called Engineering Doctorate can be attained. This means that the student does some masters-level courses in a university for the first few months and then goes on to do research in a company that sponsors them, instead of doing it in a research institute.

It’s a win-win situation. The student does relevant research and obtains a respected qualification at the end of it, earning an EngD instead of a PhD. The company gets a motivated, young person to solve (a) particular problem(s) for them and also gets to link up with a university.

Also just as importantly, the government gets well-trained, talented individuals who will have excellent knowledge of the private sector and will be likely to continue in the direction of creating new business opportunities. The EngD and PhD programmes could coexist, the former for more industrial-oriented students and the latter towards more academically-oriented students.

* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Green business

Recycling laptops for low cost economies like Africa and Asia. Businesses generally write off laptops after a 2 year period. These old laptops are generally in working order and need very little maintenance if we could recycle these, giving commitment to companies of safety of scrubbing all information. Then loading free operating systems like Linux and bundling freeware tool thus remanufacturing them for resale to growing or emerging economies at low cost.

Green business

Renewable energy is literally racing past everyone on a global scale. By this I mean that electric energy could become a by-product of the latent energy of motorway traffic. Motorways are energy channels - they are like rivers. I visualise a technology to harness this passing energy as similar to that of windmill technology.

The mechanics of developing such a technology would be left up to the likes of the ESB or others. Energy harnessed would be delivered into the national grid. As motorists spit out their carbon omissions, the flip side of this negative action would be that road users would also be reclaiming a portion of the global carbon footprint.

Let’s face it, motorways exist - they are not going away any time soon, despite what some environmentalists might wish for.

Let’s be proactive and explore the negative aspects of mooring (i.e. carbon omissions) and turn this into a positive action. If we explore this idea, Ireland could be at the forefront of a global green initiative, and Ireland Inc could benefit financially from worldwide applications to an Irish led green innovation.

Green business

Reduce the heat in public buildings, courts, government offices etc. Most of these buildings are heated to such a degree that the staff are wearing summer clothes in winter and members of the public coming in with coats on are sweating.

Policy

Lower the vat rate on goods to say 15% for a set period of time notifying the taxpayers in advance e.g. announce in April budget that VAT on goods will be reduced from June 2009 until April 2010 to 15%. The idea would be a bold statement/signal by government and should:

• Stimulate consumer demand thus increase tax taken from VAT
• Stimulate business to persevere through current difficulties i.e. light at the end of the tunnel
• Preserve jobs particularly retail/motor/construction
• Attract UK and foreign consumers (we have seen the reverse recently with consumers travelling north)

Policy

This site or ones similar to it should be run permanently, as a forum for ideas is always needed, not just in harder times.

Policy

Employment Subsidy of €300 per month. I am an employer in the retail/leisure industry, over the past 6 months business has been getting gradually quieter and profits have fallen, we have kept staff numbers the same and kept pay levels the same also, but we asked staff to consider short time and some have staff have volunteered to do 4 day weeks.

It has now come to the point that I will have to let go 2 members of staff. Their take home pay averages €400 per week. If they claim jobseekers benefit, one of them is entitled to approx. €200 per week plus rent allowance of approx. €100 per week (€1300 per month), the other staff member is entitled to approx. €340 per week (married with child) plus rent allowance of approx. €150 per week (€2100 per month).

For these 2 employees the state will have to pay €3400 per month. Add in the lost PRSI, Income Levy, Income Tax and the net loss to the state is €3800.

If the govt. paid me an employment subsidy of €300 per employee it would probably save me from letting them go and would keep the other jobs safe as well.

Bear in mind that my company contributes €15,000 per month in VAT, PRSI, Income Tax and Corporation Tax. Also remember their additional hidden costs of employment, loss of morale, loss of confidence, stress and worry, loss of productivity and you can see that the employment subsidy is a cheap investment for the govt.

Policy

Ireland should introduce a plastic bottle tax. A small levy maybe 5c per bottle would be applied to each plastic bottle sold. Like the plastic bag environmental levy, this would have environmental benefits while also collecting tax revenue. If the levy included bottles of sugary soft drinks, it might also have long-term health benefits.

Services (local)

To create a website to encourage feedback from customers (all of Ireland) of services and businesses they have dealt with. We already have one that people can write comments about solicitors, why not all services including shops etc.

Any company mentioned should be encouraged to provide a web link to their site and / or comment on the remarks made about them, this is already something eBay encourage. Vacant remarks can say it all!

Technology

Met Eireann to provide a text/alert web service similar to blight warnings where users can enter GPS co-ordinates and rules specifying alert conditions on a webpage. The conditions might be wind direction, wind speed, humidity, absolute change in degrees, etc.

Many heating systems are designed for continental Europe or USA with long periods of similar weather. The maritime nature of Irish weather means that the feedback systems are not as efficient as they might be. If a cold snap or heat wave is imminent, then a notification by text message can advise the recipient to manually adjust the heating/cooling system.

This would be useful in hospitals and schools to save energy. If students / patients / employees could log in to the web page and provide feedback for a particular location and time, the rules could be fine-tuned to match the perception of how the environment feels.

Transport

Cancel the Metro for Dublin. The people of this country do not believe it’s worth the cost. We are much better off not spending this money at the moment. We need to get our finances balanced before we consider such plans. It’s like applying for a mortgage without knowing what your income will be next year, never mind in 5 years.

The Ideas Campaign - latest sample of ideas received since campaign launch

Agriculture and food

Our agricultural land is our greatest natural resource and the CAP Policy has resulted in vast tracts of land all over Ireland lying unused. At the same time we are importing and transporting vast quantities of fruit and vegetables to meet consumer needs. This logistical exercise is damaging the environment. Also, there is a shortage of food in the world contributing to death and malnutrition.

My idea is for the Government to facilitate putting this land to constructive use. They have the power to overcome some of the obstacles which have been imposed which has resulted in complete waste of our natural resource.

There is still huge potential in organic farming/food production. In line with general green policies we should be able to market Ireland as the Organic Capital of Europe if not the world. We have a very rich tradition and skill in small farming, market gardening, and food production which pre-dated the industrialization of farming and these skills will be lost if they are not rejuvenated.

For example small holdings produced sheep which spawned wool production; knitting skills. We have people who have knowledge/skills. Given access to the land there is the potential to develop vibrant small industries. There would be no shortage of investors, given the right environment.

Construction

Can we put our unemployed construction workers to build flood defences for our towns and cities and soak-aways and ditches for our farm land, housing and roads. Our water treatment systems are Victorian, the water distribution piping leaks more water than it delivers. Why not fix the systems now? These infrastructure projects would begin to pay for themselves immediately.

Construction

Government is presently investing in re-capitalising banks. My idea is for Government, rather than putting money into banks, directly purchasing the 80,000 housing units not sold.

Government pays builders at cost or below cost; Government re-sells houses to first time house buyers, at cost! First time house buyers obtain mortgage from banks on basis of cash returned by builders to pay off loans; it is imperative that funds paid by Government to builders can only be used to pay off debts to banks

Benefits:- puts cash back into economy - enables builders to pay off loans (at least something) - loans not paid off will be written off by banks and builders, so transparency in market of what is real and not real - capital goes back into the banks - capital then goes to first time house buyers - who pay government, which is then back to zero debt on this transaction - market is now back to equilibrium and can start anew - confidence at grass roots level gains huge boost

Construction

In relation to repairs and maintenance work required to houses of disabled and elderly persons, such work could be carried out by FÁS apprentices under supervision of FÁS trained instructors, especially for such persons who find it very difficult to meet the full cost of these essential repairs.

Also in relation to disabled persons and Essentials Repairs Grant Schemes as administered by local authorities, such schemes could be reviewed so that money allocated could be used more effectively and economically by introducing a scheme to be administered by local authority who would employ redundant construction workers on contract basis to help reduce the costs of essentials repair works to the homes of disabled and elderly persons in the county.

Construction

Why not create some engineering and construction jobs by having a private industry ‘company’ (not the OPW or any other state company due to the red tape it would generate!) to carry out surveying on the extensive old railway lines and bridges/canals/waterways, etc. that we have and turn them into cycle and walking paths for safe usage throughout the country ,hopefully, with a quick turnaround in the surveying and construction work and giving locals and tourists a safe walking and cycling network enticing more visitors to come to see Ireland.

E.g.: Old railway lines used for walking or cycling to Kinsale and West Cork would be a visitor attraction in itself especially if access from the cities was available. They could also be used by light vehicles for tours, etc.

Education

Instead of paying €50m per year to rent pre-fabs for schools, use this money to service interest on a loan of €500-700m to build schools instead.

This would drive construction jobs and use local materials (note that other capital programmes such as Metro will only benefit a small number of large firms and foreign manufacturers). It would also provide lasting benefits to children and Education.

Education

Instead of having an expensive private run crèche system we should look to build on the existing primary school infrastructure and cater for all children from 1 year old. This could be funded either by parents diverting their existing fees directly to the local school or trough the general taxation system.

I see a number of benefits. There is already a school eco system in place. They already have a high level of skill in this area. Allow parents to return to work. Create jobs. Allow for the better enforcement of standards. Ensure a standard early learning circular. Reduce the overall cost to the state by eliminating various supports.

Education

This idea relates to the rules for allowing unemployed people to return to third level education. Normally you have to be on social welfare for between 6 and 12 months to qualify for a back to education allowance. There was a recent decision to allow potential students to receive the back to education allowance immediately if they were made redundant.

This was a good decision as it allowed a great many people who were used to working and didn’t have a culture of collecting social welfare to quickly return to education, up-skill and hopefully be ready to return quickly to the work force when the upturn occurs. Unfortunately Social Welfare is adopting a very rigid view of the type of redundancy people have to have received; applicants have to have qualified for statutory redundancy etc.

So my proposal is that anyone who loses their job should immediately be supported and incentivised to return to education so that they can quickly retrain. The back to education allowance is the same as the social welfare benefits and the places are available in college so it should be largely cost neutral at worst and will probably save money if retrained people can go back into the work force more quickly.

* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Green business

Switch out the lights, some of them. Clearly it would require good PR spinning, but significant expenditure could be saved by turning off public lighting on one side of every street, motorway, etc between, say 1.00am and 2 hours before daybreak each day.

Green business

Tidal Energy- Ireland has the opportunity to become a world leader in wave/tidal energy. We need to accelerate the R&D now. Funds from the NDP roads programme should be diverted here now. Benefits: Immediate job creation, long term jobs in maintenance underpins our competitiveness with low cost energy into the future. Reduce our carbon footprint.

Innovation

I would urge the Government to set up an Innovation Development Team. By this I mean a group where people/small business can go (in absolute confidentiality, and recorded to ensure no intellectual theft) and discuss an idea/invention that they think has genuine practical application.

It should provide free patent searches and patent of ideas to ease the process as many people with good inventions don’t have the finances, particularly at the moment, to pay for these.

Once an idea is established as having potential the Development Team should facilitate the inventor bringing the idea to market by arranging an introduction to an already established Irish company in the same industry to create a new business. In exchange this business would be jointly owned (in differing percentages depending on input) by the inventor, the Government (in recognition of their input and facilitation) and the existing Irish company.

In my view this process would harness a vast potential of the inventive nation that is Ireland, invigorating the country with a positive attitude, while simultaneously providing indigenous business with the means to create jobs via alternative future revenue streams.

The more ideas that could be patented with global applications while creating jobs in Ireland the better. Ideas that come to market would also ultimately benefit the Irish Revenue with profits from a share of the company, increased VAT through the product life cycle, and through income tax on the jobs that are created (not to mention savings on less unemployment benefits paid out).

Innovation

My idea is for the Government to adjust the focus of their small business support. (1) Currently most Government Business support, both start-up and ongoing, is Employment oriented, i.e. to qualify for support the business must create and sustain jobs. I believe this is in contrast to the purpose of a business, which is to generate sustainable profitable cash flow.

The best advice for a new/ongoing business is to minimise their costs, a major chunk of which is generally employees. In contrast, the Enterprise Boards encourage new businesses to create jobs in order to qualify for support.

(2) Currently most Government Business support, both start-up and ongoing, is financially oriented, i.e. they give out grants to new businesses. I believe the Government focus should instead be on mentoring. Rather than giving grants to new businesses, this money should be placed in a “Mentoring” fund. This fund would be used to provide a Mentoring infrastructure to support new and small businesses. Mentors would be provided at all stages of the business from feasibility to maturity.

* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).

Innovation

Government official should visit colleges around the country and find out what ideas people have. There is a huge amount of creativity among students. They need to be advised and pointed in the right direction to maximise these ideas.

They might need to be put in touch with a marketing expert who will help promote their business and a Finance person who will give advice on how to fund it. In short, we need to utilise the skills that are out there but we need to find them and bring them together as suggested above.

Policy

Considering our dependence on imported energy - the long term solution will have to be nuclear energy. A firm policy stand must be taken to implement this technology - the building phase and operation will provide work and the use of this clean technology will provide the state’s energy needs - such as many other European Countries. Remember Ireland imports well over 80% of our energy needs- how long can this go on for?

Policy

Make IDA grants for people, premises, etc available throughout the country, not just in specific regions. As an employer, I can get grants if I move my business (which is a subsidiary of a US parent) to a different part of the country, but not if I want to stay in Dublin. Partly because of this, we have downsized significantly from the size of organization we were several years ago as more cost competitive economies win the jobs.

Transport

In 2007 sales of new cars were in the region of 150,000 units with a VRT take in the region of 1.6 Billion. Sales of new cars for 2009 are expected to be in the region of 50,000 units and it can be assumed that the VRT take would therefore be about 500 Million (or less if people are buying smaller or more economical cars due to the recession).

The government must now bring us a new budget which we all expect to be harsh, the loss of 500 Million in income is not large compared to the expected shortfall generally, it would be prudent to consider that there may not be a better time than now to drop VRT altogether. This would have several effects.

1) The motor industry in Ireland is in dire straits, dropping VRT would stimulate business in this important sector and possibly prevent a large number of job losses.

2) The reduction in the price of cars would be a big morale boost for the population possibly affecting their economic outlook in general.

The Ideas Campaign - latest sample of ideas received since campaign launch

Education

The Government should fund the education of Irish students at the best colleges in the world for the critical knowledge-based disciplines like engineering, design and science.

I have two friends who had to turn down the opportunity to study at Berkeley and MIT because of funding restrictions. The Government could fund these people’s education abroad on condition that they return to Ireland afterwards and help create knowledge-based enterprises.

Education

My company recently advertised a vacant position in the company. We were looking for an electronic engineer with fluent Italian. We only received two applications and both were from outside Ireland. This is probably not surprising since the vast majority of students in Ireland learn French, Spanish or German.

My idea is to promote languages more in schools, at both primary and secondary level. Many languages are similar so I don’t see a reason why schools cannot teach multiple languages to students during primary and secondary school as apposed to just one foreign language. Improved language skills would be a great advantage for Ireland in the globalised economy.

Education

We should encourage the recycling of corporate IT infrastructure into the educational system These days, the corporate world tends towards a three-year renewal cycle with IT infrastructure and most surplus IT equipment generally ends up in Africa or the Middle East for recycling and metals recovery.

My idea is that this hardware could be diverted into the educational system. This would result in schools having a much larger and wider base of hardware on which to gain experience.

Schools could also access a wider range of licenses for software, and - if you include the possibilities presented by various Open Source projects, such as OpenOffice, Linux, Eclipse, Moodle and so on - this becomes an even more cost effective proposition.

(This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons)

Green business

My idea is a tax relief scheme for investment in renewable energy companies. This would stimulate huge investment in the sector, and create a large number of sustainable jobs

There is in the region of €300 billion on deposit in Ireland at present and tapping into some of these funds through a ‘Renewable Energy Tax Relief Scheme’ would kickstart this whole industry.

Green business

My idea is a slight modification on the proposal (in Ideas batch to remove all VAT on insulation products.

My amendment is that there should be a 24-month period for VAT reduction on insulation products followed by a rise in the VAT charged on household fuel. This would concentrate the minds of householders, and builders would be encouraged to insulate houses to give a better rating.

Green business

The problem most often associated with wind energy is that people think that the turbines are unsightly and residents, who do not benefit financially from wind farms, often object. A way to reduce objections and expedite planning would be to get the community involved.

My proposal involves offering shares in each wind farm or single turbine to people actually living in proximity to the turbine. A 1.5mw unit will generate enough electricity to power approximately 1,000 homes.

The cost of a unit of this size is €1.2 million. So in effect 1000 shares could be sold at €1,200 each. With some tweaking of the concept, community buildings could be provided with free electricity by donating shares to them at no cost.

People would continue to pay their bills each month but they would receive a buy-back cheque (dividend) from the syndicate on a regular basis. This money could be offset against their bill. This clean energy would reduce individual house-holders’ carbon footprint by way of their investment and would help Ireland to meet its international obligations.

Policy

My idea is that Ireland becomes as well known for competitive venture capital rates as it currently is for competitive Corporation Tax rates.

Let anyone, from any country, who is thinking of starting a high-tech business know that Ireland will, if her experts consider the business worthwhile according to the usual rules of venture capitalism, offer venture capital at a fraction of the typical rate.

The conditions would be that the new company would have to base its headquarters in Ireland (not punitive considering our tax rates) and would have to agree to employ a certain percentage of its workforce in this country as well.

(This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons)

Retail

My idea is the launch of a ‘National Spend or Buy Day’ to get the nation spending again. A monthly ‘National Spend or Buy Day’ would help inject money into local economies and increase exchequer VAT returns.

People would be asked to buy something that they wouldn’t normally buy day to day or make a purchase they have been putting off.

The amount of money a person spends is totally at their discretion, so it could be €5 or €5000, whatever the person/family can afford.

It could be a meal out, an item of clothing, a treat for the kids etc - it doesn’t matter as long as additional money is spent in the economy on these days. Businesses could offer incentives such as discounts on products and services to ensure people are getting value for the amount of money they decide to spend.

Services (local)

A large proportion of drinking water abstracted and treated by local authorities leaks out through old and worn out piping systems. My idea is that we redirect resources away from building NEW water treatment works to repairing the existing systems.

The work is relatively labour intensive and will give the construction industry a boost. The longer term benefits will be to conserve scarce water resources, reduce the energy input in water production and, ultimately, help both the country and the planet.

Services (local)

There is an increasing amount of retail/commercial/services space under-used or becoming vacant in town centres and commercial areas all over Ireland.

In many cases, this space is owned by developers under stress or in administration by the financial institutions. In the same way that non-performing loans may be isolated in a toxic bank, could this property be administered by a ‘vacant property’ organisation?

My idea is that such property could be made available (on relatively short leases) to small service operations such as shoe repairers, furniture restorers, specialist printers, artists, craft food retailers, designers, dressmakers etc who currently cannot afford high street rents.

Local authorities would contribute by awarding rate free periods and insurance companies would offer reduced rates etc. The effect could be similar to the original Temple Bar where CIE offered short leases at nominal rents which then attracted a huge variety of creative activities and industries.

This approach would mean that towns and cities in Ireland would gain the creative and entrepreneurial mix Continental cities achieve through rent control/ public ownership and rigorous planning policies.

Sport

The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was initially established as an independent Irish organisation for promoting athletics. Croke Park’s design has provision for an athletics track around the perimeter of the stadium so it would be great if the GAA utilised this opportunity to attract international athletic events to the capital.

Technology

My idea is an easy win to save money on the public sector phone bill by using VOIP technologies such as Skype or JaJah. Calls between Skype users are completely free and calls to landlines are very cheap (especially internationally).

The Skype software is free to install and they have business packages that should be suitable for government offices. JaJah is an even simpler system and is just as cheap as Skype.

Technology

Technology based start-ups have a problem finding people with the right skills, even today. At the same time, a lot of talent is in many cases under-utilised in the public services, Government research bodies and academia.

In the current environment, moving from public service to a start-up environment may be perceived as excessively risky. My idea is a career break for high skilled public/semi-state employees. Here is how it might work. Start-ups can register an interest in certain types of personnel currently employed as public servants.

If a match is made, and current employers agree, the Government agrees to pay 50% of salary for two years and the start-up finances the other 50% from its own funds/equity.

At end of two years, the ‘career break’ candidate is given the option of returning to the public service. The benefits of this scheme would include:

• the start-up gets access to talent that is currently effectively unavailable
• the start-up gets a subsidy at a critical stage
• the Government achieves necessary cuts while developing an economically critical sector
• the scheme could be implemented quickly, informally and cheaply

Tourism

My idea is that we develop and promote Ireland as a destination for equestrian holidays. Bodies like Teagasc, the AIRC (Association of Irish Riding Clubs) and the Irish Horse Board should develop packs for farmers, riding clubs and tourism businesses so that individuals and businesses can “join the dots” to expand equestrian activity both for foreign tourists and for Irish riders.

I believe that equestrian enthusiasts from Europe and further afield would be prepared to pay quite a bit for access to the best riding country in Europe.

Tourism

My idea has to do with themed tourism. Next to the Isle of Man, Ireland (north and south) has the world’s best motorbike road-racing heritage, but this heritage exists in an almost underground way. There is very limited promotion of it, and therefore little related tourism.

Strong tourism is increasingly about unique and memorable experiences. Motorcycle-themed tourism is both unique and memorable and has the potential to build strong repeat tourism business.

My idea is to properly market our bike road-racing heritage and to turn the major road races into much bigger tourist attractions.

We need to help the clubs that run the events, help improve the circuits, develop TV rights, and work hard on safety With the right approach, we can market Ireland as the home of the most exciting, authentic motorsport in the world.

Tourism

The exhibition and conference sector could make a substantially larger contribution to our economy now that the conference venue in the Docklands is about to open along with a new Exhibition Centre at Citywest. Places like Birmingham and Harrogate in the UK have turned themselves into international exhibition hubs that generate millions for both the local and national economies.

We now have the infrastructure, particularly around the Dublin area, to host these big events. Research from a few years ago (www.big.ie) highlighted that the business tourist spends in the region of 70% more per day than the vacation tourist.

Having ’sampled’ Ireland, many business tourists could also return to Ireland in a tourist capacity bringing friends and family. All of this will create real jobs, real growth and a positive impact both direct and indirect to our economy and country.

Transport

Many airlines flying to/from the US cannot afford to purchase landing slots in Heathrow, so Shannon should offer free or minimal landing charges to encourage transatlantic airlines to use Shannon