CITIZEN to CITIZEN to CITIZEN Creating Wealth through the Gift Circle of Taxation ‘There is nothing more wasteful than becoming highly efficient at doing all the wrong things’ (Ref Peter Druker) Recessions are wonderful opportunities. They allow time to reflect on, and reconsider, the manner by which we engage with and organise our communities, and create wealth for our citizens. This proposal concerns itself with the re-interpretation and transformation of taxation so as to reward and celebrate citizenship. This proposal therefore concerns itself with the reconsideration of key concepts relating to our national perception of: 1. Citizenship 2. Land 3. Wealth 4. Taxation The proposal therefore explicitly concerns itself with a process within which our transformation as a country and as a nation must evolve. It suggests a methodology of taxation, a nine year citizen tax, which is equitable and reasonable and which will negate the current tendencies of our monetary policies More...

Make Ireland the home of the research and development (R&D) activity. Support the R&D and be perceived as the country where most of the industrial research and innovation. Convince the industries that Ireland is the country where industrial research should be based, the prototypes should be developed, and the new products tested and brought to the market. Communicate to the world that the well developed infrastructure in the country would permit high standards of living for the scientific personnel, the universities would provide high profile staff and the efficiently set up legal and political environment are ideal to develop and to license new products. Basically, offer a stable working environment and high standards of living to those who want to analyse, develop and improve the technologies of the future.

Despite the global downturn, Ireland is still able to attract considerable foreign direct investment to its shores. According to the IDA, there are nearly one thousand Multinational Companies operating in Ireland at present. My proposal investigates the possibility of creating linkages or ‘learning partnerships’ between these companies and local SME’s in order to promote sustainability and maximise employment potential.

My idea is to allow employers to hire people who are collecting job seekers allowance at a reduced cost. Employee could still collect their full allowance and the employer would only pay the amount in excess of job seekers allowance. The jobs would be for qualified people and pay twelve Euro per hour.

Ireland has a unique opportunity to become the first country in the world to energize its industrial and social frameworks by embracing population ageing as a positive phenomenon, with enormous potential to not only harness the energy of older Irish people, to create new products and markets relating to ageing, but also to provide positive leadership in a world where the majority of older people live in the developing world. While the rest of the world focusses on the negative aspects of ageing, Ireland can steal a march by embracing the positivities and opportunities of maturing societies: according to the EU, the senior citizens market will grow by 81% from 2005 to 2030 while the 18-59 year old market will only increase by 7%! The key challenge to realizing the Demographic Dividend is to embrace the complexity of ageing, which means that growth and loss occur at all ages: a little known fact is that gains in longevity after 1970 have added $3.2 trillion a year to the US economy. The More...

Not all is despair. Ireland has an optimistic and forward looking population, prepared to support good leadership and ideas. This is a core tenet of our proposal. SMEs can lead Ireland out of recession. We propose a three strand approach: 1; Establish National Recovery Bond to address credit shortfalls to SMEs. 2: Reconfigure Minimum wage (without reducing it) to increase competitiveness. 3: Establish National Pension Fund to focus on Irish investment & significantly address national pensions concerns.

As the population of Irelands "greys", the amount of older people supported by the labour force will increase dramatically over the coming decades. Therefore there will be less productive workers supporting many more retired persons. We have to deal with the current ageist policies in employment law (normal retirement age), state retirement ages and provision of healthcare for older people. Our policy creates a universal healthcare system which enshrines the right for all older people to healthcare services. This will be funded by a state insurance scheme. In addition employment will be created through increased support for families with older relatives. Relatives should be kept at home where possible, not imprisoned in nursing homes when of sound mind but having no one to look after them. Age is something that will affect us all, its time for young and old to rally and protect the rights of older people. Someday soon we to will be older.

Turn Ireland into the most sought after country in the world in which to work and live by fixing all the elements that are not working and which are disrupting our society. We need to recognize that Ireland’s most unique feature is its landscape, people, location and reputation as a creative and unique country. We should model our growth and development on territories such as the island of Jersey. Like Jersey our focus should be on: Financial Services, Tourism, IT, Digital and Green Technologies and Agriculture. With this in mind we can sustain two main industries: Tourism & Arts based products and Ireland as a Tax-Haven / Corporate HQ / private Banking paradise for multinationals and wealthy individuals wanting a presence in an English speaking country. Furthermore green technologies, ecommerce, IT, education are areas we can grow and develop, plus agriculture should be restored to being a key industry on this island. Our unique position as an island protects us from GM crop More...

I propose to bring in 10million extra tourists a year to Ireland by offering 10 million 7 day Holiday packages for €299 each to anyone in Europe over 65 years of age The package would include Flights & a 7 day stay in our multitude of hotels throughout the Country Ireland is known for being expensive to holiday here & this way we can bring in the extra tourists who would'nt normally travel here The airlines (Aer Lingus, Air Arran & Ryanair) would get €99 per passenger The Hotels would receive €200 for the seven day stay without food(there are thousands of empty Hotel rooms throughout Ireland). With what the tourists spend when they visit it has the potential to bring in an extra 10 billion euro a year When we most need it.

A way of increasing your own tax free allowance by buying irish goods products and services. A percentage of Business taxes are put to local business grants to ensure money generated within a community is kept within the community.