The Ideas Campaign - latest sample of ideas received since campaign launch
Culture
An Ghaeilge, the Irish language, is a wholly under-utilized resource in this country today. It is under-utilized in packaging or as a “guaranteed Irish” emblem on the food and goods we produce.
It is under-utilised in the way we project our cultural image in tourism or as the key to our natural heritage and history.
An Ghaeilge now has official recognition in Europe and this opens up a vista of interpretation, translation and training opportunities. Irish is taught in 48 prestigious universities worldwide - an opportunity for twinning inbound visitors and learners of the culture of Ireland. When the web is factored in with Irish language websites, resources, training and utilities, this beckons lots of opportunities.
So the idea therefore, in keeping with our constitution, is to give the language its voice on a daily basis in packaging, in branding, in promotional material, in coded strategies and instructions to our nation representing athletes, our rugby and football teams, our anthems, our politicians and our administrations.
By putting an Ghaeilge to the fore and as a protocol, the country engenders a spirit, a collaboration, a sense of team-work.
Má thugann muid aire don Ghaeilge, trí nósmhaireacht agus cleachtais, tabharfaidh sise aire dúinn mar atá déanta aici le 3,000 bliain nach mór.
* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).
Culture
At every level - whether it be family, education, health and economy - alcohol abuse is crippling Ireland. My idea is that the main profiteers of this mess should help clear it up and take some responsibility.
Drinks manufacturers should pay an extra tax to cover the fallout from their product. Every drink imported into the country should have an extra tax for same reason. Publicans should be fined more if caught serving later than permitted.
This tax will be used to cover the health costs associated with alcohol abuse, and the social welfare costs going towards families suffering because of this. A link must be made between the promotion and marketers of alcohol and the resultant effect.
* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons)
Culture
Make it absolutely tax-free to film here. If even one big-budget film comes here a year, the knock-on effects for catering, taxis, extras, tourism, local business etc is huge. We’re talking millions to a local economy, depending on location.
Education
Focus on making personal development/entrepreneurial thinking a compulsory element in our syllabus. Until a subject is examinable, students won’t take it seriously nor indeed will parents who continue to endorse the grades race.
Introduce creativity and brainstorming into all streams including primary. This will require an addition to syllabus development and retraining of targeted teachers.
No point trying to excite students about these key skills if the teachers are lifeless and looking forward to their holidays. Also it’s incredibly important that we reform the teacher experience.
I believe that teachers should be retrained in a different subject a minimum every six years - this would help to inject some fresh energy and enthusiasm into the system. After working in over 120 schools I see every day more and more examples of the bubbly teacher going stale after five years.
Also the government needs to fund personal development/stress training for all teachers on an annual basis - they need to be cared for if we expect them to care for our children.
* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).
Green business
Resource recovery parks - the idea is not new, it is currently in operation in Canberra Australia. It involves all the recyclable and reusable waste from a region coming to a locally based facility where all the re-use and recycling industries are on-site and they feed back firstly into the local economy and then for export.
1. Rubber can be recycled into astro turf, all weather pitches and running tracks roads.
2. Tyres can be made into rubber road reflectors.
3. Glass could be used to reopen glass bottle factories for all colour glass. Costs in the current economy are reducing, so such plants can now be profitable. Return deposits for glass bottles have the incentive of keeping our streets litter free and it also reduces running costs for the councils. Broken glass could also be returned here as a valuable resource.
4. Plastic recycling should be enforced as another deposit scheme. We need to dispose of the throw away mentality.
5. Timber which is a non-standard size and old timber can often be more valuable and of higher quality than mass produced timber. Resources such as timber could be bought and resold onsite.
6. Design modularisation and design for disassembly. These are design techniques which avoid throwing away an entire product when one piece is broken. The design concepts are better modularised and easy to disassemble and fix.
7. Recyclable cars need to be designed and this should be enforced by the EU. Cars should be re-useable and recyclable so that the resources are not lost and so that maximum energy is saved.
8. Building materials such as construction and demolition waste should be re-used and recycled.
9. Renovation waste should be free cycled.
(This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).
Innovation
One of the biggest spends in Europe over the next 10 years will be in research and manufacturing in the whole area of security and defence. We are talking tens of billions!
At present as far as I am aware we have no industry in this area. We need to ensure that we get a piece of this cake.
Innovation
My idea is a standalone low voltage hydrogen on demand only generator. Most of us are aware of the inefficiency of heating boilers and combustion engines.
Hydrogen generated on demand only is a safe and very economical fuel additive which will not only increase efficiency and power output but substantially reduces CO2 emission. It simply burns the wasted fuel that would normally go out through exhaust/chimney.
I have manufactured and installed such a device in my home with amazing result. One litre of distilled water will convert to more than 1,800 litres of gas, commonly referred to as HHO, two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen. A cup full of water is enough for a week of operation.
Typical examples of use include: home heating oil-fired boilers, petrol and diesel generators for electricity, cars, trucks and boats. This includes all commercial and service industry vehicles. Why have a separate gas storage tank when you can generate your own for a few cents an hour?
* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).
Manufacturing
Have a TV advertising campaign to assist companies in energy efficiency. As well as helping the environment, this will save lots of money and helps protect jobs. The measures which could be incorporated include:
1. Assigning responsibility to actions e.g. who turns off the lights. This could be linked into company competitions where the best improving companies get an award - this could also provide an employee bonus from the money saved.
2. Pointing out where energy is being lost and what possible solutions are. For example: heating systems - many companies use electric storage heaters which have less than 30% efficiency when factoring in power production and distribution. One way of reducing this is by powering the heating system using e.g. a renewable energy source or company. People are using air conditioning in the summer when the ambient temperature from opening the windows is about 19 degrees - the ideal room temperature. Hot water taps have too much power and the temperature is set too high. Hot water is one of the biggest energy consumers for factories.
3. Compressed air. A lot of companies use this expensive utility and massive money could be saved by fixing leaks (typically over 30% of the overall cost), more regular maintenance, locating the input pipes outside and recycling lost heat energy (heat recovery of the waste heat into the building).
4. Renewables. There is a high hot water demand in most factories; solar thermal panels could be very productive. Another way is to use an on-site wind to water turbine to heat the factory - this technique is probably the most effective use of wind power because inductive load losses are avoided and there is no need to convert to AC electric power.
Supplementary to this idea, the advertising campaign could encourage factories to set up energy champion teams.
* (This idea is very long and detailed and has had to be edited for space reasons).
Services (local)
- Take all unemployed clinical speech and language therapist graduates (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.
- The benefit to the hospital would be better and faster services to waiting service users.
- The benefit to the newly qualified speech therapists would be to acquire the necessary hours to achieve full accreditation.
- Pay the speech therapist the job seekers allowance (being paid as dole money now anyway) plus a salary.
- Run it as a one-year programme.
Services (international)
The future for Ireland lies in exporting. All Irish companies need to look for export opportunities. My idea is that a task force should be formed to look proactively for SMEs that have built up good businesses in Ireland in recent years.
This task force will identify companies that have export potential and will work with Enterprise Ireland to ensure this potential is developed.
There are many very good businesses out there and with a little guidance and assistance they are capable of breaking into new international markets.
Social and voluntary
Influence public behaviour by getting charities to sign up “ambassadors” who would wear a badge. Organisations can then run campaigns where rewards go to the charity chosen by the ambassador.
If Bord Failte had a mystery tourist who wandered around Ireland hitching lifts, looking lost etc, then any time the mystery tourist was helped by an “ambassador” that charity would get a vote.
Exceptional treatment of a tourist e.g. providing a meal, a shower, a blow-dry, a bed for the night etc might warrant 10 votes.
The blood transfusion board could give votes for first-time donors. Anti-litter campaigns might have a mystery litterbug and encourage people to go up and ask “Are you the mystery litterbug?” which would probably garner a few mentions in the media after a few days.
By altering the behaviour of individuals sufficiently altruistic to support a charity, it would improve general behaviour.
Tourism
I’m probably one of thousands who won’t visit Ireland this year because of big losses in our investments, and the continuation of high prices in Ireland once we arrive.
Perhaps the Irish should do what we Vermonters did when we wanted to attract more Canadian visitors some years ago. Many businesses simply allowed the use of Canadian money at par.
If it wasn’t so darn expensive I’d probably return to Ireland this year, and accepting a dollar for a € might get me booking tickets. I’m sure a lot of tourist related businesses would rather have a dollar (for a €) than an empty room or restaurant. Just a thought! A cheaper € might be really helpful to all concerned.
Tourism
While tourism has been affected by high euro exchange rates and falling disposable incomes there is still scope to develop revenue in this area. To do this, the cost of holidaying must be competitive.
I suggest that we encourage the development of community based programmes to deliver a good quality package. I have visited a number of semi rural communities throughout the west of Ireland particularly, and note that a large number of houses are unoccupied.
These can be new builds which the builder is stuck with,or holiday homes occupied infrequently throughout the year. A community could develop a package for the rent of self catering holidays pulling together.
- Many holiday home owners are prepared to help a local community if they were assured that their properties were looked after.
- A local business which will benefit from an influx of business will provide caretaker/contact services including key holder etc - a major beneficiary would be the local pub/supermarket.
- Local business would provide backup services, plumbing, maintenance etc.
- Local accountants would provide bookkeeping and payroll services at no cost initially and nominal thereafter.
- Local amenities need to be developed; the cheapest is to develop walking trails. A number of these already exist but they tend to be over mountain land and can be specialised. I envisage a combination of back roads and fields passing by local landmarks etc and have a beginning in a local pub or restaurant. It will need the ending of the stand-off on crossing farms but I think a community based project has a better opportunity of doing this.
The holiday should be packaged with an activity for each day which should be a combination of free and attractively priced. These could include fishing, sailing/canoeing etc.
The project would require a large community capital but small cash and while direct employment may be small, the spin-offs will underpin jobs in pubs, restaurants, shops etc. The way to start this I believe is to develop a template to be followed by a community grouping.
Tourism
Promoting Ireland as a destination for English-language holidays/vacations. My family used to run an English-language school, where students would come for a week or two from Japan and other countries (most sourced via the Web) to learn advanced English or business English. They like to stay locally and interact socially while here.
My idea is to combine the two by actively promoting Ireland as a destination for learning English while enjoying a holiday experience. One week learning the language, the second actively speaking it while enjoying Irish hospitality.
It needs to be run by a reputable travel company or network of companies whose tourist guides are TEFL qualified with literary also to include pub crawls, visits to local attractions etc.
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