Ireland's greatest resource is its people: Tourists come to Ireland for the antiquities, the scenery, golf, pony trekking, family history, any number of reasons. But they come back for the people. Lately when tourists come looking for the Irish wit and warmth, they find taciturn eastern Europeans serving the soda bread, pouring the pint, and guiding the tours. The 100,000 Welcomes have been outsourced! Besides that, Shannon Airport is being sidelined -- the American visitor can no longer fly into Shannon from Atlanta, Philadelphia, or Chicago. This alone will cause great harm to tourism in the west of Ireland. The re-invigoration of the Irish hospitality sector and the saving of Shannon Airport are my goals. My plan will address both of these issues. See "Destination Ireland, continued" D9794 for my plan.

I believe that if we are going to improve our current economic situation we need to get back to basics, to realise our strengths in tourism and agriculture and also that through supporting one another on a community level we can create a model of economic sustainability to help us through this potential crisis. Lets face it; its highly unlikely that there is a magic solution to solve our current economic woes in the short term, what is certain however, is that we as a people can decide that we are going to get out there and work together to change every corner of this country; to solve our litter problem for instance, to improve street signange, to uncover and exhibit those archeological gems which lie abandoned in our towns and villages, to paint our buildings, to clean our streets, to organize weekly farmers markets and events to get people talking and spending locally, to plant trees and maintain green spaces. My idea is ultimately aimed at getting us motivated to work together to p More...

Is this true? Did he really say that? Whether or not he did actually say this is irrelevant. It's all about spin these days thanks to him and his nephew Edward Bernays. It was he who was responsible for the birth of PR. He is the father of spin. Freud had a student Carl Gustave Jung. Jung had ideas of his own but was dismissed by the vain and arrogant Freud. Jungs ideas were later developed by Myers and Briggs and today companies all over the world use MBTI testing to help make their busineses run more smoothly. It is a tool to help people identify their strengths and weakneses. My proposal would be to turn Ireland into a world leading centre of excellence in MBTI research and developement. The only commodity the Irish have that other nations don't is the Irish mind. With the right propaganda campaign we could help give this country a much needed moral boost and sail into the next decade in true fighting fashion.

We have some of the finest renewable energy & precipitation sources in the world. We also have some of the mot beautiful scenery in the world. However most of these resorces remain unharvested & when we eventually do start generating from renewable sources our infrastructure is not good enough to make power export a viable option. We could feasably export water but at times we can't even cope with our own water needs. Our beautiful scenery can often be only seen safely by car as we have no footpaths or cycle lanes and the scenery is scared by the proliferation of telephone & electric cables on telegraph poles. We also have a massive human resourse out of work in the construction industry. The Utilities Interlink is proposed to provide a realistic and achievable system to link utilities to all our towns and cities while providing cycle lanes & footpaths. At the moment all our utilities follow there own tracks around the country. However all centres of population are linked More...

We have some of the finest renewable energy & precipitation sources in the world. We also have some of the mot beautiful scenery in the world. However most of these resorces remain unharvested & when we eventually do start generating from renewable sources our infrastructure is not good enough to make power export a viable option. We could feasably export water but at times we can't even cope with our own water needs. Our beautiful scenery can often be only seen safely by car as we have no footpaths or cycle lanes and the scenery is scared by the proliferation of telephone & electric cables on telegraph poles. We also have a massive human resourse out of work in the construction industry. The Utilities Interlink is proposed to provide a realistic and achievable system to link utilities to all our towns and cities while providing cycle lanes & footpaths. At the moment all our utilities follow there own tracks around the country. However all centres of population are linked More...

This proposal is from my family. Having carried out a thorough SWOT Analysis on Ireland Inc., we believe that there is a massive employment opportunity around what we feel is our single biggest natural resource (an island nation surrounded by Sea with Magnificent Lakes and Rivers) which can deliver thousands of jobs in throughout the island of Ireland. The employment and economic benefits would be delivered in every community throughout the country, and would be transformational in terms of unlocking the true potential of the nation. There would have to be total buy-in and commitment by Government, Enterprise Agencies, Tourism Bodies (Nationally and locally) that the single biggest opportunity for employment growth is using our natural resources (Our Seas, Our Lakes and Our Rivers) , and joined-up thinking to bring about this transformational and breakthrough idea in terms of job-creation. It would require the creation of a single Government Authority where ALL aspects of our Sea More...

This is a proposed solution to a problem which i am sure many people who regularly travel the length and breadth of ireland especially on secondary roads have encountered, namely the scourge of the drinks bottle. I propose a levy or deposit on all plastic drinks bottles to encourage consumers into the habit of recycling, This deposit scheme would be implemented using barcode identifiers on all plastic bottles and would be implemented from a notable future date eg 11/11/11. Initially there would be an outlay to the producers of such drinks bottles in upgrading equipment but this would be recouped over time once the scheme had gained traction. I propose collection areas , a minimum of two in each county geographically located to optimise collecting capacity ,more in more populus counties. These would be simple collection cages the size of a lorry container, similar to a setup i observed in australia some 20 years ago with tin drinks cans ,the only difference being a barcode scan More...

While the developed countries are still suffering from recession, several so-called developing countries are rapidly recovering and leading the world out of the current doldrums. Official tourist figures show that the number of tourists visiting Ireland from these countries (i.e. the Rest of the World) rose by 8% in 2009, the one bright note in a thoroughly depressing report on our current tourist situation. Nevertheless, the percentage and ratio of tourists coming from the Rest of the World pale into insignificance when compared with our immediate European neighbors. Our proposal aims to attract these nouveau rich travelers to Ireland, especially those from the BRIC countries, with some innovative marketing and an online campaign while also putting into action a community based plan which would make Ireland a more attractive destination for new visitors. The time has never been better to reinvent our image, to reevaluate what made our country attractive in the past, while bringing s More...

Instead of the spirit of ireland - becoming the powerhouse of electricity generation for Europe (through wind power)- have the HydroSprite Emer-ald! If we focus on developing ALL our water facilities; from grey water collection in house design (for sustainability & state coffers) to wave power (instead of landslide inducing windfarms) off our atlantic coast, we would be maximising our most plentiful natural resource...more effectively than windpower. This would create jobs in all areas and several sectors: ie our well educated science graduates, plumbers, builders, electricians and many more. The wave power part would have the effect of providing the nation with a desperately needed sustainable, desireable product to export: energy. It would do so without the same major objections which have faced the wind generation industtry such as unsightly, damaging to the local housing/population etc. The grey water collection bit would help our nations households, schools, hospitals & oth More...

Overview of Proposal: To give a state-sponsored body the job of acquiring, managing and marketing a large portfolio (circa 5000 units, but scaleable up or down) of self-catering accommodation throughout the country, and making these units available to tourists at a discounted rate. Individuals or bodies (including NAMA) would be invited to apply to have their units included in the scheme. The best and most suitable units in the best locations would be selected. According to one estimate Ireland has 300 000 homes not inhabited, in addition to approximately 49 000 holiday homes, many of which are vacant for significant amounts of time. Ireland is an attractive tourist destination, with high satisfaction ratings from visitors. Arguably Ireland is capturing a much smaller share of the tourism ‘cake’ than it could- we had only just under 7 million overseas trips made to Ireland in 2009 out of a European total of 488 million. 30% of our overseas visitors stay in rented accommodation. More...