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Summary of ideas submitted in the Services (local) category…

• A credit card based ‘loyalty scheme’ should be introduced to support the service industry.
• Address the fly-tipping problem.
• All government ministers and TDs and senior civil servants should travel by taxi instead of state cars.
• Allow home help costs to be tax deductible.
• Allow people to sign on at post offices
• Allow private tenders to operate security companies to remove untaxed uninsured motor vehicles
• An increased regulatory environment. Cap on amount of leverage used by financial institutions
• An Post should post newspapers to subscribers and open seven days a week.
• Break the police system into separate units.
• Bring back bartering
• Bring back the CES
• Bring down the cost of hairdressers, dentists and doctors in line with the decrease in the costs of other services.
• Builders should let homeless people stay in their unsold houses
• Businesses with a social impact should be encouraged.
• Collect outstanding planning development charges.
• Convert all hospital patient files to a digital format.
• Create 100,000 minimum wage/ low paid government jobs.
• Create a national online database of nixers/short term jobs that need to be filled at short notice
• Create a special lending company to make funds available to SMEs
• Develop a network of community services centres.
• Drop hotel single room supplements.
• Educate the Government on the costs of pension provision, and also educate the public sector on the value of their pension benefits.
• Employ civilians to perform Garda administration tasks.
• Employ international management consultants to assist with a public service productivity plan.
• Employ more litter wardens. Double fines on dog waste.
• Enable proprietors of private and commercial property to successfully conclude sales without having to pay auctioneers’ and estate agents’ fees.
• Encourage business-people help start-up companies in their local area, in return for equity share.
• Encourage farmer’s markets.
• Encourage Irish firms to buy Irish.
• Encourage local authorities to make compost and animal bedding from waste.
• Encourage older people to pass on their cookery and other household skills to the younger generations through structured, local classes.
• Encourage people to use local craftspeople such as cobblers.
• Encourage small and medium businesses to outsource some of their operations to local freelancers.
• Establish a network of locally-based hire shops to supply items that are too bulky to travel with: baby buggies, cots etc.
• Establish a network of tale-commute centres in vacant buildings or converted unused industrial buildings where people can work from a local office without having to make an unnecessary daily commute.