Summary of ideas submitted in the Other category…

• Childcare payments (to crèches, childminders etc) should be made tax deductible. Overall, the Government would benefit by having more people working.
• Children’s allowance should be means tested.
• China is now the world’s third largest economy and has the potential to overtake the US this century. There is little sign that Ireland is really prepared for this. Offer Mandarin Chinese as a language in the school system and an all-China network of Irish alumni with support from Irish consulates would be a building block for the future.
• Clamp down on cars registered outside of the state.
• Collating and analysing meaningful business information in Ireland is very difficult. Why can’t we use the CRO or Revenue Commissioners to impose an obligation to provide comprehensive, detailed information on the activities of every business in the country?
• Collect water from rainwater down pipes and pumped with small solar motor to a pressure vessel which maintains a pressurised supply to your attic tank or directly to the taps.
• Communities coming together with skilled leaders directing unemployed people for projects.
• Communities to restore 100 monuments around the country.
• Community Enterprise Development Organisation - the development of an enterprise culture among a group of people who would not normally see enterprise as having anything to do with them. It will facilitate people who have inventions and/or business ideas, but who are unable to, or have found obstacles to the exploitation of their ideas. An organisation be set up in defined communities based around a group of credit unions.
• Companies should be encouraged to opt for a 50 hour week (i.e. increased productivity) with job sharing, i.e. 25-hour weeks for all employees.
• Companies to open their doors and offer ‘internships’ to those who wish to pursue the knowledge that will lead to a change in career - a win-win for all involved.
• Completely restructure both the Seanad and the Dáil.
• Computerisation of medical records: nationwide access, avoid duplication of tests, minimise errors.
• Concentration on public sector pay, employment and taxation and on people in receipt of social welfare should not be used as a masking mechanism to protect the high numbers and remuneration of TDs.
• Connaught gas/oilfield: an independent energy assessment needs to be made of this field and what it contains.
• Contact all those Irish graduates abroad and list their qualifications, experience and if they would be prepared to return to Ireland to the right job. It could be a useful tool for the IDA when encouraging companies to start up in Ireland.
• Convert large areas of land into biofuel.
• Convert the Cork-(Limerick)-Galway corridor into a combined “tri-city area” that can compete with the likes of Dublin. Make Shannon into a hub. Invest in a rail network to facilitate this and attract high-tech companies.
• Copy how Sweden got out of their credit crunch of the early 1990s in record time. They hung the bankers out to dry and made examples of them so the public’s thirst for blood moved on to productive ideas, looking towards the future and recovery.
• Could we get a tick box so that you can agree or disagree with the various ideas?
• CPI should be set at 100 on (say) 1 September 2008. For each percentage that the CPI is reduced below that figure, the unions should be asked to recommend that their members acceptance of a reduction in wages equal to that amount.
• Create ‘Recession Free’ zones in your workplace. Cash penalty collected for charity against anybody who mentions the recession or any related topics. Print off poster stating “RECESSION FREE ZONE” and place it on the door of your workplace.
• Create a local online database that would list “service available”, and another section would list “service required”. Both databases could be matched and the person providing the service to be put in touch with the person requiring the service.
• Create a mechanism whereby the ordinary person on the street could give spare cash to industries, particularly small industry and retail.
• Create a model for sustainable living and development throughout Ireland.
• Create a non-government committee who would flag current and future wasteful spending.
• Create a scheme for employers to allow them claim back on employers’ PRSI contributions against the full salary of new employees for two years. Limit this to €250,000 per company.
• Create a task force solely to develop the exhibition and conference sector in Ireland.
• Create a tax bond similar to old SSIA except payment into bond could come directly to Revenue through PAYE.
• Create a true communications medium for a community area, which would encompass all communications in an area, which people may wish to have made public.
• Create a website for advertising wants and offers. On this website people could post lists of all the goods and services they would like for themselves their friends and families (if money was no object).
• Create a website where people can write their “I wish someone would invent…..” ideas and these can be picked up by entrepreneurs.
• Create cycle paths and encourage activity holidays.
• Credit Unions to enter into a partnership with Government, by way of using some of their investments in common bonds particularly with regards to school buildings. If schools within our common bond needed capital for repairs or extensions, the credit union would put up 50% of the funds which would be guaranteed and repaid by the Government over a 10 to 15-year period at a preferential interest rate.
• Crime: every citizen has a PPS number and every citizen has a financial relationship with the state - unemployment benefit etc. In cases where perpetrators do not present a physical danger to society, instead of sending them to hugely expensive prisons, fine them and deduct this amount from payments normally made to them by the state.