Summary of ideas submitted in the All island economy category…

• Regenerate manufacturing in this country by buying and building wind generators. The Government should invest in establishing these businesses here. Focus on large industrial projects which can create large numbers of jobs, both skilled and unskilled, to sustain our economy.
• Reintegrate Irish emigrants and the second and third generation Irish by offering low-income housing on short and mid-term leases to people with the skills and experience specific to important economic sectors.
• Reintroduce an SSIA type scheme
• Reintroduce SSIA type scheme to shore up the banks’ core capital reserves
• Relax the licensing laws
• Remove children’s allowance for those earning over €200,000 annually.
• Remove DIRT tax on savings and reintroduce am SSIA-type scheme
• Remove early childcare supplement and replace it with a tax a credit.
• Remove inefficiency in government and introduce zero based budgeting
• Remove the ceiling on PRSI contributions.
• Remove the PRSI holiday for high earners and shelve employers PRSI for at least 3 years.
• Renegotiate contracts for offshore oil and resource finds, tax these companies fairly and consider nationalising our oil reserves.
• Replicate the entrepreneurship model deployed in Argentina during their economic crisis between 1999 and 2002. The Argentinean finance ministry created a website which matched experienced executives with young companies. The state, instead of paying benefit, paid a much reduced salary to the older guys who got a small equity stake in return for getting the new companies and enterprises off the ground.
• Require banks to lend a set amount to the SME sector in return for the Government providing the state guarantee.
• Re-skill construction workers to other areas such as the service sector, administration and manufacturing)
• Restrict the number of jobs that any one person can hold.
• Retailers and companies in the southern border counties should aggressively price match with their competitors over the border
• Revenue should offer a 1% discount on income tax to the self employed if they make monthly returns on a direct debit basis.
• Salaries be capped at 100k; all expenses be stopped; the senate be abolished; abolish the office of president; consultants etc be put on a one year contract and if they do not accept salary terms etc, they are replaced.
• School hours should begin at 8am so that parents can drop their children into school before work starts, cutting down on congestion. Schools should also offer a child minding service until 6pm.
• Scrap lump sum payments when people retire.
• Scrap public/private hospitals.
• Scrap Stamp Duty and replace with VAT charged at the standard rate.
• Scrap the Dublin Metro.
• Scrap the Seanad, junior ministers, middle management in the HSE/ County Councils and introduce performance based bonuses.
• Sell off state-owned enterprises (ESB, Ports, DAA, Irish Rail etc) to raise cash.
• Set up a domestic offsetting scheme for Irish projects in areas that are not covered by the EU ETS. This would reward companies for activities to reduce emissions by allocating equivalent carbon permits
• Set up a National Recovery Bank. The public will invest their money in establishing this bank and will be the shareholders
• Set up a scheme where by an individual could lend money to the government and there was a guarantee that they would get it back.
• Set up a state-run exploration company to assess the value of resources off the Irish coast
• Set up a website listing critical Government projects that have been bogged down for years. Allow local groups to come together to solve these problems and then provide tax reliefs on the project.
• Set up a whistleblower hotline for benefit fraud.
• Simulate devaluation through a new Social Partnership agreement that recognises that wages will need to fall if we are to regain competitiveness. Citizens should accept income loss in hope of long term macroeconomic stability.
• Start a government job support subsidy instead of the dole.
• Start to tax bloodstock industry and stallion fees