Summary of ideas submitted in the Other category…

• Reduce some of the risk of social welfare being spent or sent overseas. Extended credit terms for the exchequer, as instead of up-front cash payments to all social welfare recipients, some funds would be held pending vouchers being redeemed.
• Reduce substantially, or eliminate, stamp duty on the purchase of residential property for a specific time period.
• Reduce tax relief / shelters.
• Reduce the amount of taxis used by the HSE by organising mini buses.
• Reduce the cash element of the social welfare payment and instead offer food type vouchers that are redeemable at all major retail shops/stores within the 26 counties.
• Reduce the corporate tax rate back to the old rate of 10%.
• Reduce the Dáil to just 40 TDs, one for every 100,000 of the population, the same ratio as the UK.
• Reduce the heat in public buildings, courts, government offices etc.
• Reduce the number of Dáil members to 100 as well as reduce the number of junior ministers.
• Reduce the number of primary schools.
• Reduce the number of TDs from 166 to 60 and increase their pay and bonuses by 25%. TDs would then be elected on their merits rather than their popularity at a local level. This would lead to better qualified individuals entering Dáil Eireann. Success demands strong leadership. The positions of Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the ministers provide the leadership that will guide the nation either to prosperity or failure. These posts should be filled by the most qualified persons possible.
• Reduce the numbers in prison in Ireland and instead increase community service.
• Reduce the size of the army by half.
• Reduce the working day to no more than five hours - for everyone. Spread the work around and free up people’s time to focus on their lives and find solutions to the problems that are really important.
• Reduce/eliminate employers’ PRSI. This would provide businesses with an immediate and effective “quick win”. It reduces employer costs and makes it more attractive to employ staff. It potentially enables employers to provide customers with lower prices (up to 10%). The tax revenue that the Government thinks it will lose will actually still be collected, most likely in the form of VAT from consumer spending.
• Re-establish a steam train rail network along the disused line in SW Ireland.
• Re-establish power plant at Bellacorick, Co Mayo, and set up an anaerobic digester for waste.
• Reform the healthcare system to include an electronic patient record at its core. A major component of any reform of the healthcare systems will require the creation of an electronic patient record where the citizen becomes owner and caretaker of the information. They carry the information to the service as opposed to individual healthcare providers owning pieces of the individual’s record.
• Reinvent the financial services industry by devising a regulatory model to ensure effective and transparent regulation to restore Ireland’s reputation. This could become the blueprint for a cross-eurozone regulatory body.
• Relaunch the SSIA savings scheme.
• Remove all the prefabs in schools. Create a trust within each parents’ council at each school to manage the budget/project required (€18,000 per annum term, 25 years per prefab size room).
• Remove pieces of art that are not aesthetically pleasing, thus saving on the cost of their maintenance.
• Remove tax individualisation as this will allow parents who would like to give up work to return to the home, thus opening up jobs for those who want to work.
• Remove the PRSI ceiling, which would generate an extra €221 million.
• Rent-to-buy in the second-hand housing sector.
• Replace Microsoft Office with Open Office - http://www.openoffice.org/ Application Servers (for running IT systems) - too many open source platforms to choose from, JBoss being a top pick at the moment.
• Replant forests immediately and create jobs in felling trees, processing timber and replanting. Incentivise households to convert to wood burning stoves/boilers by the simple step of having these products at zero rate VAT.
• Request the National Lottery to direct its “good causes” funding for a limited period of time to the national exchequer.
• Require people on social welfare for more than a certain amount of time to work for their dole e.g. painting schools, picking up litter along roadside, manning help lines, gardening in public areas etc.
• Require social welfare claimants to sign on at the post office but pay the money into their bank accounts.
• Require that all government buildings (this includes universities and ITs) and offices turn off lights, computers, photocopiers, and printers at night when leaving work for the day.
• Research the potential to derive energy from organic composting waste, human or otherwise. Perhaps a design could be conceived (using enzymes?) that could accelerate the decay and energy release from organic waste into a heating coil, with this heat circulated into a buildings heating system.
• Resource arts/creative education.
• Revalue all property underlying mortgages on banks books - reduce loan to devalued amount.
• Revenue allow a discount to all self-employed tax payers who pay their end of year taxes early instead of waiting till 31 October or indeed November for online payments