Summary of ideas submitted in the Policy category…

• Keep Government ministers in Ireland for Paddy’s day to save revenue.
• Large businesses should let their unused office space to smaller companies at a cheap rate. The rent should be subsidised by the Government.
• Large companies with unwanted work space should sign up to a proposal to let small growing businesses use the premises with a rent of approx 50% of the going rate.
• Launch a national campaign to make sure that everyone understands their tax entitlements including what tax they should be paying.
• Launch a national web-based database that details the procedure and money saved in all successful cases of waste reduction in the public service.
• Launch a new ‘Save, Spend, Invest, Activate’ (SSIA) scheme to raise emergency funding for the Government.
• Launch a scheme where people who refuse to pay fines or bills, or cannot pay due to financial circumstances, would pay a weekly sum based on their disposable income.
• Let both partners share statutory maternity leave.
• Let the political parties pay their county councillors rather than getting paid as a civil servant.
• Level of borrowing should be limited to a percentage of GDP.
• Local authority housing policy should be changed to allow for a maximum tenancy of 15 years instead of 10 years giving a maximum of 45% and a special once of discount of 10% for houses bought in the next year.
• Look to the private sector on what benefits are given to employees and copy.
• Lower the income limits to which a family is entitled to free legal aid for a divorce and put a deadline of 6 months on all cases.
• Lower then minimum wage and cut vat on goods to encourage people to spend more.
• Make IDA grants for people, premises, etc available throughout the country, not just in specific regions
• Make it a legal requirement that all property selling prices be disclosed on a website.
• Make it compulsory for everyone to purchase a bond.
• Make it Government policy to turn Ireland into an IT/Services-based economy like Silicon Valley. A PAYE tax credit scheme for jobs which sustainably grow the economy should be created. This would be useful in rebalancing the attractiveness of different occupations.
• Make it mandatory that heating not be turned up above 20 degrees in Government and public buildings. 20C is a comfortable working temperature and it is above this level that heating costs start to shoot up.
• Make repeat motoring law offenders pay a large sum of money in the form of a bond. If convicted more than a certain number of times, they lose their licence and bond. This money then goes to the road safety authority.
• Make salaries more variable with lower fixed salaries and bonuses to supplement income in good times.
• Make tax allowances interchangeable between spouses.
• Make the auditor, as well as the company, responsible for breaches in law.
• Mandate a Government department, or alternatively set up a new department, to work with any company that is struggling in the recession.
• Marketing institutes should lobby the Government to increase marketing resources for companies attempting to trade their way out of recession.
• Maternity and Illness benefit should be taxable.
• Merge the Army and Garda to form a national defence force.
• Merge the social-welfare and employment sectors, with positive support for nano-enterprise.
• Minimise external borrowing and increase domestic borrowing by launching a national recovery bond, offering for example a 3% pa return, with the promise of a bonus at the end of five years, if the economy has recovered.
• Money paid on childcare should be tax-free.
• Move non-producing public sector workers from paid employment to paid unemployment.
• Nationalise our natural gas and oil resources.
• New legislation should be brought in for homeowners who are in danger of defaulting on their home loans. They should be able to renegotiate the terms and conditions, even if this means a term of indefinite duration. In effect, no home loan will be seen as a bad debt as it will be repaid in full sometime in the future.
• Offer people a share in Ireland’s future success through a wider form of public private partnership whereby individuals can invest for a share in the Governments capital programme (a Fund).
• Offer private sector workers an SSIA-style pension scheme.