Summary of ideas submitted in the Other category…

• Set up a single Garda call centre for handling non-emergency calls e.g. graffiti writing.
• Set up a website to provide comprehensive information on healthcare options. It would act as the first point of contact for anyone considering using health services, by directing them to which service they should use (GP/health centre/A&E etc), where they can find it (embedded Google Maps), when they should visit.
• Set up a website where ideas to save money could be submitted for government or semi state bodies.
• Set up an advisory group to mentor the Government on how to manage our key indigenous resources effectively with a view to differentiating ourselves as a nation.
• Set up an instant neighbourhood crime alert network. I am suggesting that neighbourhoods should operate “Crime Text Alert Ring Communities”.
• Set up an Irish company which hires the best minds available in every field of business from management right through to sales etc and export the know-how to Eastern Europe.
• Set up another SSIA type investment type opportunity.
• Set up community gardens in a manner akin to the gardens projects setup in bombed cities post WWII. Locals would be involved in the design and planting and care. Overall this could help people who want to be able to acquire more local food and local herbal supplements.
• Set up more swap shops in local areas for both sexes. One person’s old clothes are another’s new wardrobe.
• Set up state-guaranteed private pensions scheme.
• Set up the equivalent of the credit union of a venture capital market in each county. Capital to be invested can consist of financial and knowledge capital. Encourage people to become “enterprise developers”.
• Set up/provide a service that ultimately “gets people together”, in a way that will benefit people both socially and professionally.
• Significant office expenses costs could be saved in the public sector by requiring all civil and public servants to be paid wages by electronic transfer. Significant savings in postage could also be made by making it compulsory to receive online wage slips where employees have access to the Internet or email.
• Since the financial crises made it harder for many to get loans at payable rates, why not do peer-to-peer banking (p2p banking) without the banks? Those who have money they want to invest can lend to those in need of a loan.
• Skilled people should become teachers and mentors, especially in relation to FÁS courses.
• Skills audit in each community to ascertain the skills mix and how people might be willing to contribute to the local economy, giving them the opportunity to develop local spirit and initiative.
• Small businesses that have a turnover of under €500,000 per year should have a VAT holiday to enable us to get through these very difficult times.
• Small departments get own budget and if they don’t spend it all they don’t get it next year. It’s inefficient and the civil service doesn’t appear to be able to change it, so bring in someone with carte blanche to change things that make absolutely no sense.
• Spanish and American private schools in Ireland have been very successful. Let’s entice schools from China/Hong Kong and other EU countries.
• Spend for Ireland campaign calling on all Irish people to keep spending and get out of the recession.
• Start a campaign to pressure the Irish Government to purchase (and absolve) the bad debt of Irish citizens.
• Start a web or meitheal or hive approach to the way we do work. Some workers will gradually grow into businesses and more will just stay self-employed. Each person living in a house already has a base. Computers take the place of office space. An example: I am a musician/ block-layer/gardener etc. I get/find small gigs from the community via noticeboards (physical or internet). I will find someone else in the same way, to hire and to do all my paperwork.
• Start again with a new Enterprise Agency.
• Start building new hospitals now. Impose a new PRSI regime with everyone contributing, akin to the UK system i.e. free healthcare for all.
• Start injecting private oversight into public sector to sanitise departmental wastage.
• Start manufacturing wind turbines. (Several ideas on same theme)
• Start our own bank. Sign up every household in the country to contribute a certain sum per week/month to a fund from which finance can be drawn by small business requiring such finance and preserving jobs.
• Start to identify the prospects for a ‘cash flow bank’ by identifying and isolating those banking functions involved in assisting SMEs especially in the collection of debt.
• Start to prune all of the new coniferous forestry plantations. Why? Ireland currently imports 90% of all its structural timber, because only a small percentage of the timber grown in Ireland is structural grade. When the timber is ready for harvest it would be better quality and more valuable.
• State should offer Irish-inflation-linked bonds to institutional investors.
• Statute books have provision for fining people for lots of anti-social activity, including littering, speeding, etc. These fines are rarely enforced.
• Stop charging VAT for purchasing materials and equipment in the public service.
• Stop free legal aid access for repetitive criminals.
• Stop giving money to poor countries.
• Stop paying double time in health services and all public services for Sundays/public holidays.