Summary of ideas submitted in the Other category…

• Review construction workers pension scheme.
• Review the taxation deal done on the extraction of oil and gas off the Irish coast.
• Review the way money is being pumped into the banking sector.
• Revise social welfare payments.
• Reward social welfare recipients who use their time to help society.
• Rewrite the National Spatial Strategy, making it more specific. Belfast and Dublin need to be our core gateways to the island, supported by Cork, Galway and Limerick. Regional: better regional plans that highlight urban structure, rural structure /strengths specialisations and infrastructural requirements such as roads, telecommunications and broadband. Local Initiatives: each town in Ireland is unique - keep it so.
• Rolling business loan scheme where SMEs can operate a buffer loan with the banks to cushion them against late payment by customers.
• Run exhibitions that are free in and the stands are free for new businesses. Run ’speed dating’ type meetings for small companies to swap business cards and have a five-minute spiel to each other. Organise events for people with ideas needing support, financial or otherwise, e.g. a “Dragon’s Den” type of affair.
• Sack the three parties, who have failed miserably by their ineptitude, and replace them by persons with past relevant experience - from any party or even non party.
• Save on cost of administration of car tax system. Have car tax paid as levy on fuel instead of annual road taxation.
• Savings are tanking and investment brokers are happily helping themselves to the money invested by their customers. Now is a good time to get that money back out into the economy. However rather than splurging the cash on one “last big bash”, look for people and/or small companies that you can invest in.
• Scandinavia and the Caribbean are declaring their intentions to be based entirely on renewable energy by 2030. Ireland should state a similar policy and use the technologies we develop and implement as a showcase to the world of what can be done.
• Schedule the Dáil sittings at normal business hours.
• Scheme to encourage and support small-scale forestry or “woodlots”, where individual plantings did not exceed 4.99 hectares and exclusive to native and broadleaf schemes.
• Scrap all town councils in Ireland, redeploy permanent staff into main county councils. (There were several ideas on similar lines)
• Scrap childcare allowance and give a childcare tax deduction instead.
• Scrap fifth year in secondary school and replacing it with a form of compulsory national service which would be focused on the provision of community related projects.
• Scrap the Dublin underground and connect the rest of Ireland to Dublin on a high-speed rail link. Use the old trains to re-establish the ring network around all Ireland.
• Scrap the pension levy and apply a similar across-the-board cut to all workers in Ireland, both public and private. Also cut all social welfare payments by a similar 7.5% ,saving an additional €1.6 million.
• Scrap the VRT. Introduce a car scrappage scheme for any car which is currently taxed and in use and 10 years old or older. This scheme would remove approx 100,000 environmentally dirty cars from the national fleet, at a cost of approx €150 million. By definition these will be replaced with 100,000 new greener cars, thus helping us to achieve our Kyoto targets by reducing our national carbon footprint.
• Seal the leakage of VAT and other revenue from Irish residents bringing in goods that they buy on holiday outside the European Community.
• Sell assets to the “bad bank” at a very conservative value, but allow the banks to retain an option to redeem at a fixed price within a stated period (say five years). Allow the banks to write off losses over an extended period. Subsequent recovery of asset values (which is likely to happen with property based assets) would be offset against these losses dampening their impact.
• Sell Irish passports to high net worth individuals.
• Sell off social housing stock to those who can afford it or want it.
• Send registered letters to all recipients of social welfare to update info, and discontinue direct credits to bank accounts until recipient proves qualifying status.
• Services work in the public sector (consulting, PR, design - the range of services work is endless) should be given to SMEs.
• Set clear leading-edge standards for conversion and modifications to high specification, end-to-end (including sustainable) architecturally designed facilities, including landscaping, all mapped out in detail etc. Utilise the surplus manpower in construction, including allied providers and supporting services that are now in survival mode.
• Set up a bad debt bank.
• Set up a brand new (and for a while parallel) HSE Mark II. Invest several billion in a system of complete new hospitals, work practices, technology. In three to four years’ time when everything is built and ready, announce the closure of the HSE. Let people in the HSE/hospitals apply for jobs in the new system under the new work practices.
• Set up a cooperative society for the unemployed, followed by community projects in parishes which they might do for free.
• Set up a global TV network for the 80 million Irish diaspora.
• Set up a government supported scheme (perhaps through Enterprise Ireland) to provide funding for companies that cannot raise debt finance from the banks to support the business. By providing an equity injection (at a low valuation if the company is making significant losses) the Government would then benefit from the successful turnaround of these companies if and when the economy improves.
• Set up a job creators’ exhibition, an ideas exchange, a new ideas and new business fair, at the RDS in Dublin (and then on around the country), so that people can meet and talk to those who would like to try out a new business idea, or invest in it, or both.
• Set up a loan scheme - those who can undertake to borrow say €10,000 from bank to be repaid over five years at a fixed rate and paid straight to government.
• Set up a register of professionally qualified persons who are willing to give their time to assisting businesses in need on a voluntary basis. The volunteers might consist of individuals from all walks in life who may be retired or out of work but have independent means, and are willing to give a minimum of one day per week.