What would YOU do to bring about economic recovery?

Start my own business!

And I'm chipping away on some software that may turn into just that down the road. I think we'll be a long time waiting for the government to do anything, so we're better off seeing what we can do ourselves.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

cut dole by 40%
Reduce minimum wage by 20%
Reduce rent supplement by 50%
More stringent criteria for claiming various social welfare benefits - onus on the social welfare to check everything out, rather than the onus being on the claimant to provide information.
Increase PAYE rates
Increase PAYE bands downwards and create third band for higher earners
Privatise CIE - Unsure on this. It may possibly be better to simply treat it as the HSE is treated. Top heavy with unions, overpaid people not doing enough work for what they earn, and a happy culture of "sure that's how we always do things", as well as people getting their relatives jobs (I know of a few). Take it apart and replace it, but I'm not sure privatising is the way to go.
Reform ESB
Abolish HSE and replace with new organisation, allowing no guaranteed admin jobs to be transfer before thorough investigation into need
Cut TD numbers to 80-100
Merge City and county councils into 4 regions and Dublin
Reduce Senead remuneration to 50% of current
Reduce TD remuneration to 50% current
Abolish TD expenses
Redirect DF funding to support Navy first and foremost
Reduce employer PRSI and other "anti employment" taxes and red tape
Abolish/merge 60-70% of Quangos
Sell Aer Lingus to Ryanair
Build more prisons
Remove concurrent sentencing
Minimum jail terms for repeat offences
Public service pay cuts, by grade starting at 10% up to 40%
Cease excessive pension benefits for new PS workers
Proper investigation into nuclear generation options-I'd go for investigating our natural resources. We are in a position to make huge use of wind and wave energy.Worth doing before nuclear, as it's already started as renewable energy.
Increase motorway speed limits and other reforms (weather dependant limits, minimum speed etc)
Remove Anglo from guarantee and allow to die
Allow at least one of the other banks to die
Support the rest on the understanding that 75%+ of any profits goes to gov until debt repaid

As part of social welfare and overall reform, I'd also ensure a central database was set up, based on the PPS cards that most people already have, containing necessary background and working information on everyone, that is accessible to all Gov depts, to avoid social welfare cheating, and the complete lack of communication between Gov depts.

I'd also go through all civil service depts and those on very high wages, and offset against the "consultants" that keep being called in to advise...abolish as necessary.

Adopt a harder line with unions - work with me, or work against me.

Invest in public transport until it was coming out people's ears. Link the Luas lines. Run 2/3 Luas lines out to the north and north west of Dublin. Ensure buses connect with trains, which connect with Luas. Connect Dublin Airport to the rail network with a luas/dart line...there's a lot of land between the airport and the train line into the city that can be crossed, above ground. Link Dublin by train to major cities, with trains running every hour/45 mins for cheap return fares, and to lesser towns/cities with trains every hour/hour and 15 mins.Motorways are done, we shouldn't be investing any more in them. Offer people an alternative. A PROPER alternative. Needless to say, there will be an associated jobs spin off.

Start investing in people's quality of life. Set up a scheme whereby local communities can fundraise and upon reaching a certain amount, get a grant, towards building a community pool/hall/outdoor pitches etc for their area. Incentives to local builders who do the work.People's quality of life is not considered enough in this country - it's not enough to build an estate and say "there you go".

Some of those things are small as well as nationwide. But you have to start somewhere I suppose. And I took the lazy route and hijacked the Cookie Monsters suggestions (sorry), which are excellent!!

Good on yer, Ren2k7, you're looking forward.
The wake is surely over, the Ireland of yesterday is buried and tomorrow beckons. Great news.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

do you really think the €500bn+ to build this would be justified? never mind maintainance

I have no idea what it would cost, but it would only have to link to the UK, not Spain!

As an aside, how does your suggestion to increase the speed limit contribute to economic growth?

Here's what I'd do, first of all I'd disband the County Enterprise Board structure. I'd then allocate a new budget of 10,000,000 Euro and I'd set up a new team of people called The Enterprise Team. These people would be private sector people who would go into every Social Welfare office on signing on day and set up a desk there beside the queue of people waiting to sign on.

The theory here would be that in a society, you have people who are leaders, who have business ideas BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, also have the get up and go to implement these ideas. You also have those who are equally important in the process but are more followers, they prefer to get direction rather than give it, and are in a place in their minds where employment sits better with them than being the employer.

I'd give this Enterprise Team very specific targets with regard to drawing people out of the dole queue who have good innovative ideas, who are prepared to give them a go. Behind the scenes in all of this, a local IDA unit or some unused government property would have been identified to use as a base for this project in each locality.

As each business starts up, I'd be marrying up people in the dole queue with the necessary experience with individual businesses. Each local centre would have experienced business people who would give their time in the evenings and on an "on call" basis in a voluntary capacity not unlike like credit union members do.

I'm not clear on the finer details but I went down with a friend recently to the dole office when he was signing on and I couldn't get over the fact that there was nothing whatsoever in place to target people who might want to get off the dole, I was shocked by that, just sign the card and see ye next month... There were around 300 plus people down there that day, at least 30 people in that queue must have had a good idea that would have been fit to bring to market with a bit of support.

Broadband

Now with national debt and serious issues like access to heathcare it may seems a frivallous spend.
But it's an investment.

I'd say most people on boards are in one of our main cities.
Many rural areas are still on dial up and it may be years before broadband is national. However, they achieved this in Northern Ireland already.
But I'm not aiming at the home users yet, we'll get them someday but first:

At a minimum, every town should have access to broadband. Our town achieved this in 2005, wow and people in cities have this for over five years before
Many local towns have a business park run and a county enterprise boards.
Let the vacant units at cheap or even minimal rents to new startups instead of having them sit idle.

Rent is a killer for many small businesses. With the broadband access they can then network and market their business. And this helps startups away from the main cities where there are fewer options for job seekers

Hey, maybe this already exists I don't know.