Summary of ideas submitted in the Other category…

• Stop subsidising private healthcare as it causes severe damage to our health services.
• Subsidise crèches so they may increase pay for qualified staff - and therefore reduce attrition and improve services, at this critical stage. Regulate charges to prevent subsidies transferring into increased profit. Crèche fees are tax deductible.
• Substantial tax benefit to help ensure that those who are either entering business, or already in business, engage in a meaningful way with a reputable business coaching programme.
• Surely the cost of keeping a patient in hospital for five nights is far greater than the cost of staffing an MRI over the weekend. Surely if these tests were available on Saturday/Sunday the beds could be released to more needy patients/ reduce waiting times in A&E.
• Surplus of residential property in Ireland used to meet requirement of old age facilities.
• Switch off some streetlights.
• Switch to free software.
• Take a basic business course. Many adult education organisations or local colleges offer a “Start Your Own Business” type course where you can learn about the basics of planning, bookkeeping, or marketing, in a safe, supportive environment.
• Take all unemployed college graduates, for example Clinical Speech and Language Therapists (approx 100 in number). Assign them to hospitals across the country and link them to the multi-discipline team to reduce the backlog and waiting list for access to services.
• Take more action against littering. Go through rubbish to find a name and address, and properly fine these people who are leaving bags of rubbish on the side of the road (and possibly have prisoners do this job of going through rubbish).
• Take over Anglo Irish Bank backed vacant properties which we now own, and network them to allow upwards of 100-200 IT programmers, engineers, scientists, architects and other professional disciplines who have lost their jobs and are availing of unemployment benefit to come together.
• Target money at those who spend it by paying off their short-term debt and thus, we get it back in taxes as these people re-use some of their newly available credit lines.
• Target the crime gangs and confiscate their wealth.
• Tax anyone who witters on about the Celtic Tiger.
• Tax parking spaces at their true value.
• Tax savings (in addition interest on savings) in a reversal of the SSIA arrangements.
• Tax the 30,000 millionaires.
• TDs need to take a 30% reduction in their gross salary, and unvouched-for expenses need to be abolished. Similar reductions need to occur in the Senate.
• The “Guaranteed Irish” brand really needs a whole new breath of life blown into it, because it’s too expensive to buy Irish.
• The amount of people buying houses is quite low as they fear these will go down in value once they buy them, so they are waiting for prices to hit bottom. The Government should buy up these available houses and sell them to the people at a discounted price. These houses could be bought in large quantities at a lower price as developers are eager to sell.
• The bad bank idea means that the Government will only nationalise the country’s bad debts. The only way to nationalise the good debts as well as the bad debts is to nationalise the banks.
• The banks have the mortgages for most of the family homes in this country. If the Government bought those mortgages from the banks, then the banks would have enough capital available to satisfy any international lender and the Government could extract payment directly from the mortgagees.
• The banks should start lending money to the small businesses because the big ones can keep going for a while without it.
• The biggest drawback of generation of electricity from renewable energies, and wind energy in particular, is that it is variable. Therefore storage and electricity interconnection to other markets are key. The construction of several pumped storage hydro-electricity plants, like Turlough Hill, would greatly increase Ireland’s security of supply and allow us to bring more wind energy onto the grid.
• The childcare allowance should be scrapped and the cost of childcare should be a tax deduction instead.
• The Children’s Allowance should be means tested. Any household on a combined income of over €150,000 per annum should not receive Children’s Allowance.
• The creation of an ‘Irish Patriot Bond’ to be administered by the NTMA. The bond is intended as a means to raise finance at a cheaper rate than currently available on international markets. It would draw on the good will of Irish people abroad and maybe domestically, who would be willing to invest money in Ireland’s future.
• The credit unions have surplus funds that could be used to alleviate short-term cash-flow problem if the Government were to guarantee the loans for cash-flow purposes. That would allow credit unions to use different considerations when assessing this type of loan application. The guarantee would only need to be paid in the event of the failure of the business.
• The current justice system could be improved to help boost the economy. Prison is a place where only dangerous criminals should be housed. Anyone who commits a financial crime, whether it is fraud, tax evasion or otherwise, should be forced to pay back the money to the state - for a fixed duration of a number of years. Dangerous criminals or anyone in jail for being a menace to society should be put to work within the prison system.
• The early childcare supplement should only be payable to families who are using childcare.
• The Government can remove the burden on the employer of paying the employers’ PRSI contribution. This will instantly reduce the employer’s labour costs by a very significant margin and give Ireland a major competitive advantage.
• The Government could borrow money from companies that can afford it and then repay it interest free.
• The Government could set up a scheme in which a person could purchase “VAT vouchers”. These could be purchased for, say 18 cents each and they could be redeemed for 21.5 cents (after one year from the purchase date of the voucher) anywhere you wish and the amount deducted from the cost of the VAT on that purchase.
• The Government is to fund yet another referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in October. Can’t they use this money as an investment in our country right now?
• The Government must get its house in order. If not, an outright taxpayer revolt may be the only way to restore responsible government. The Government must go either way and put an end to this pyramid scheme economy once and for all.