Summary of ideas submitted in the Other category…

• Many younger public servants have no interest in paying into a pension. Why not let them opt out of it. This would put more money back into their wage packets and in turn the economy. The money paid into the pension to date, should be refunded - in whole or in part, or in steps over a certain period of time.
• Market online sales to more countries.
• Market ourselves more clearly as entertainment and cultural leaders, ensuring that Ireland is not connected with corruption. A proposed Creativity Forum would marry creativity with enterprise and look at how we cross-fertilise great thinking in both spheres: arts and business.
• Medical cards: No one ever consults the patients to verify if the patient actually was seen by that doctor or anyone in the medical practice. If this was monitored even on a sample spot checking basis, there may be a reduction in the cost paid out by the HSE. The spot check could take place in a random area where letters were sent out to patients that doctors claimed have been treated in any given time frame.
• Minimum 1k pedestrian/cycle approach on all sides to schools.
• Minimum wage must be reduced.
• Modern communications networks will become one of the main key battlegrounds for economic success or demise for all countries within the next five years. In anticipation of this there are already a cluster of countries that are approaching an advanced stage of preparedness. In Ireland we can take a different view and leapfrog every other country in the world with the delivery of the most advanced communication network in the world, showcasing the country, create a spawning ground for innovation for FDI and indigenous companies, with unique and significant employment creation opportunities.
• Modern version of Guaranteed Irish - Guaranteed Green. We could leverage from that to many areas to include attracting green tourists.
• Moratorium on interest payments for a specified period during which the repayments that the mortgagees make are deducted from the capital amount involved.
• More flexible arrangements for voting.
• Motivation campaign - we need words of motivation to reach the nation each day. This could be done through this site, on radio, TV etc. Or simple but strongly motivating quotations posted on billboards.
• Move the Sutton to Sandycove walkway and cycleway to the top of the pile (www.s2s.ie). It proposes a 22km sea promenade and cycleway around Dublin Bay, and up the Liffey to the IFSC and Trinity.
• My idea is for a town’s land caretaker to clean up the local town’s land and then patrol the land to keep the litter under control and to report illegal dumping.
• My idea is that somewhere there is an area where employed and unemployed people can register their skills and partake in a type of bartering of skills.
• My proposal is that the Government ask the two banks which they have recapitalised to write off 20% of the original mortgage of their first-time buyers. However, this is not to be seen as a bail-out of mortgagees; rather, the mortgagees will continue to pay this 20%, but to the exchequer
• Nationalise the gas supply.
• Nationalise the health service.
• Nurses and physiotherapists are trained at taxpayers’ expense. But we then don’t employ them; there is an issue of skills loss if these professionals are not employed. There is a longer term issue for the public health service if we do not employ and develop the skills. Salaries should be capped at €100,000 in HSE and money freed up then used to employ frontline staff, part-time is better than nothing.
• Nurses are constantly distracted by having to answer enquiries from relatives and friends of patients. Develop a website with enough pages for all the hospitals’ beds and A&R trolleys. When individual patients are checked in, they are allotted his page, and their next of kin is given a password to access it. Since nursing now involves a large amount of recording, it should be no trouble to transfer routine information to a page, such as ‘had CT scan, no unfavourable results’.
• Offer “Vanity Car Registration Plates” at a price. These should be worth €5,000 each and could be transferable to a new car.
• Offer a prize (€1 million?) for a competition open to all third-level institutions outside Ireland. The goal is to come up with an equitable, dynamic political system. Terms of reference to be set out by Irish third-level institutions. The entries are shortlisted to 20 by the Irish third-level institutions.
• Offer citizenship to Irish descendants.
• Offer people close to retirement in the public sector generous discounts on the years of service required e.g. five or 10 years.
• Offer people the opportunity to do local based work for one or two days per week; e.g. tidy towns, community centre, care work or meals on wheels to name but a few. This would take pressure of these services which are already overstretched.
• Offer qualified trades people and construction workers a 20% increase on their dole payments if they work for the Government on the programme of public works.
• Off-peak taxi fare discounts for pensioners.
• Older public servants should be given an incentive to retire early, in an effort to reduce numbers working in the public service.
• On a global level, ‘green issues’ are moving higher up the social, business, and governmental agendas, but in a somewhat disjointed way with no obvious country leading this drive. Ireland is traditionally seen as a largely unspoilt country and although we lost some ground in recent years, we can correct ourselves and put ourselves in a strong position as a global leader in green issues. My idea, therefore, is to develop Ireland as a global ‘Green’ brand.
• On a prescribed day called ‘Jog the Cog’ day, as many businesses as possible should pledge and pay, say, 5% of bills to those they owe money to. They should also get firms that owe them money to pledge and pay them, say, 5% of their bills.
• On a recent visit to a third level college I noticed that all the computers and projectors in the class rooms were on standby. This is a big waste of power and surely could be rectified.
• On an agreed date, half of the balance of every Irish resident’s “savings and loans accounts” would be removed to a ‘Fund’ (if in credit) or paid by that ‘Fund’ (if in debt)
• On the same date, salaries would be halved, the rates for services would be halved and prices for all bought items would be halved. If the total amount of credit in the country is greater than the total amount of debt, then the remainder of the ‘Fund’ would be divided between all first-time buyers who have been left with negative equity. (Scaled relative to their value shortfall and their ability to pay).
• One government department or section of a department should be made responsible for the implementation, coordination and purchase of all state requirements in relation to the public sector use of IT.
• One of the biggest challenges today is to restore the morale of the Irish worker. The reasons for the demoralisation of workers are obvious - they feel betrayed. Maybe some of the leading training/development organisations (FAS, IMI, etc) could come together to formulate a strategy that would focus on the re-engagement of the Irish worker.
• One of the biggest spends in Europe over the next 10 years will be in research and manufacturing in the whole area of security and defence. Ireland should look at entry into this market.