Aileen O'Toole on RTÉ's Prime Time in January 2009

The Ideas Campaign was launched in March 2009 as an independent and non-political citizens’ campaign. It was modestly funded by AMAS, a Dublin-based online consultancy whose Managing Director Aileen O’Toole led the campaign. She’s a former business editor and was the co-founder of The Sunday Business Post newspaper. For more details, visit the AMAS website.

The campaign was staffed by people who have lost their jobs because of the recession, with support from several volunteers as well as AMAS’s directors and staff.

The Ideas Campaign was launched on RTÉ’s Prime Time on 5 March, and Phase 1 - gathering ideas from citizens - ran for March.

Phase 2 - turning the ideas into an action plan and continuing to create dialogue and awareness about positive aspects of economic activity - was completed in May 2009.

The campaign set out to play a part in rebalancing the national debate about the recession and the state of the economy.

This website is the heart of the campaign. It was developed in four days with a low budget.  Awareness was built through PR activity, online promotion - particularly on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter - and volunteerism.

We are particularly grateful to our campaign Supporters, who promoted this campaign in their organisations and businesses. Read about our Supporters.

The campaign has received several offers of support, most of which we have turned down. We are keen to maintain the campaign’s independence and its grassroots integrity.

Other offers, which have enabled us to stretch our low budget and do not compromise the campaign’s ethos, have been accepted.