Ideas

Offalycool

Ok. We are all fed up. What are we going to do about it?
I’m not an economist, and I don’t have a grand solution. But perhaps instead of a magic bullet, what we need is lots of good solutions to add up. Here is one incoherent idea; perhaps we can fix this idea until it seems viable.

I have recently become familiar with the concept of ‘service learning’. The idea is simple enough.. Students work in their field for free in order that they gain experience. Could this be widely implemented to better prepare our students for a competitive Ireland in the future? Could the government provide tax incentives to business to take on student in order that the infrastructure of the country be improved?

Perhaps, FAS could implement the scheme and turn the system into something productive for the country, maybe even save a euro or two? Companies may be able to afford to take on jobs that benefit the country, i.e. broadband infrastructure. Why stop at public infrastructure, what about public services, NGO’s, tourism etc. The student, and future employee, gets practical field study and a better education. Maybe with the reintroduction of fees, companies could provide scholarships for the best students. Similarly, community organisations should, perhaps, take a more active role in the public services. This may increase awareness of social issues, and create a more transparent public service.

What do you think?

leninbenjamin

Admirable idea but it wouldn't work.

a) Students can't survive on nothing for too long. Getting an income during work experience for some students (like engineers commonly do) is very important for some of them to be able to pay for their degree.

b) It would take the companies too long to train them to do anything useful. It might work for menial jobs like in the service industry or that, but by and large it would be more hassle than it's worth for the companies in higher skilled areas. They'd have to train them in (a process that can take months if not years in some sectors) only for them to feck off as soon as they can get a job elsewhere.

the best alternative is really just to push for more investment for research in Irish universities.

Long Onion

You would also have issues around the minimum wage, the unions accusing employers of pushing out paid workers in favour of student labour and the social welfare advocacy groups accusing the system of favouring students over the unemployed.

StealthRolex

How about David McWilliams starts a new political party and he hand picks the top graduates and post-grads from various relevant areas - finance, economics, politics, tourism, agriculture, education, communications, transport and whatever else and stands enough in each constituency such that if he wins enough seats he can run the country.

To make it attractive part of his manifesto is to cap all TD and ministerial salaries and cap all public service salaries such that they are no higher than the Taoiseachs.

Top salary for the Taoiseach €150k
Top Salary for a minister €100k
Top salary for a TD €50

No pension payments until they are 60 and only one pension to be paid.

All public servant \ civil servant salaries capped at €150k

Annual increments and uplifts at no more than standard index. It was ridiculous to see TDs awarding themselves 20%+ pay rises when ordinary workers could only get 5 or maybe 10%.

I can see arguments coming from some quarters that some of these candidates may lack experience. Fair point but some post grads will already have been in industry. The option could be to recruit from the experienced graduates and industry\business leaders but they must be willing to take the reduced salary.

If you don't like David McW how about Bill Cullen? Ok only kidding - that man does for Renault what Cowen does for Ireland. It's not his fault really, Renaults are just crap but that's getting off topic.

General idea - there has to be someone out there who can do a better job of it than the current incumbents and the potental replacements from FG Lab et al. and we need a clean sweep. I don't know about the rest if you but I have as much faith the FG Lab as I do in FF Green PD.

Maybe we should just outsource the entire political system to the lowest bidder. It is after all a government operation.

P. Breathnach

StealthRolex wrote: »

How about David McWilliams starts a new political party and he hand picks the top graduates and post-grads from various relevant areas...

No, thank you, to the McWilliams idea. He is a water-skater -- dashes about on the surface rather than getting right into the pond.

And as for the idea of a graduates-only party -- can you imagine anything more divisive? [Mind you, such an approach would have saved us from Bertie.]

jimmmy

StealthRolex wrote: »

No pension payments until they are 60 and only one pension to be paid.

All public servant \ civil servant salaries capped at €150k

The public service unions would never agree with that.;)

StealthRolex

P. Breathnach wrote: »

No, thank you, to the McWilliams idea. He is a water-skater -- dashes about on the surface rather than getting right into the pond.

And as for the idea of a graduates-only party -- can you imagine anything more divisive? [Mind you, such an approach would have saved us from Bertie.]

I agree to a certain extent , he can be a bit too much up his own egocentricity - but I was thinking of someone with an understanding of business and economics and can see a failure coming.

basic idea is to get some intelligent people in who are less self serving and get rid of the law graduates.

For divisive you want Coir\ Gay Lesbian coalition.

StealthRolex

jimmmy wrote: »

The public service unions would never agree with that.;)

Bring in legislation to restrict them. The average industrial wage here is somewhere between 30 and 40K depending on sector. There is no good reason for them to be paid much more than the private sector given that they have near bullet proof pensions and tenure after 2 years.

If they go on strike fire them and replace them with candidates from the dole queue.

A large part of the mess we are in is of our own making by letting the politicians and snivel cervantes pencil pushers get away with it. If this country is to survive and get back on it's feet it has to be run like a business. Perform or get out.

graduate

And as for the idea of a graduates-only party -- can you imagine anything more divisive? [Mind you, such an approach would have saved us from Bertie.]

Can I lead this party?

Idbatterim

why not advertise positions and award to them to the lowest suitable bidder for every position, outside of where specific training is required?

97i9y3941

well since we are supposently all the one nation in europe which allows use to have a free market etc,they could save a bloody fortune by outsourcing the goverment itself!

jimmmy

Fred83 wrote: »

well since we are supposently all the one nation in europe which allows use to have a free market etc,they could save a bloody fortune by outsourcing the goverment itself!

or the public service, seeing as ours is the highest paid in the known world ! Why should we employ ( + pension ) the most expensive servants ? Is our education system , health system :rolleyes:etc that good ?

97i9y3941

well i do have to laugh at time micheal martin critized cuba for its human rights issues at the time- a country that has a better health system than ireland and england!

Dannyboy83

Offalycool wrote: »

I have recently become familiar with the concept of ‘service learning’. The idea is simple enough.. Students work in their field for free in order that they gain experience. Could this be widely implemented to better prepare our students for a competitive Ireland in the future? Could the government provide tax incentives to business to take on student in order that the infrastructure of the country be improved?
What do you think?

I know more than a handful of people doing this.
People have been doing this at least since I graduated tbh.

The end result usually tho is that they emigrate anyway. (and take their partner with them who subsidises them while they gain experience)

Dannyboy83

P. Breathnach wrote: »

No, thank you, to the McWilliams idea. He is a water-skater -- dashes about on the surface rather than getting right into the pond.

And as for the idea of a graduates-only party -- can you imagine anything more divisive? [Mind you, such an approach would have saved us from Bertie.]

You don't really need to be much more than a water skater for the position of Taoiseach.
You need to have leadership/management skills and be analytical/decisive.
McWilliams is/has both imo.


Besides, most of our current politicians, even besides the nepotisim, have had zero real experience themselves anyway.


Make McWilliams An Taoiseach and put Michael O Leary in charge of Health or Finance.

97i9y3941

we needed someone like margaret thatcher,she took on the unions,and broke them in two...

SLUSK

Offalycool wrote: »

Ok. We are all fed up. What are we going to do about it?
I’m not an economist, and I don’t have a grand solution. But perhaps instead of a magic bullet, what we need is lots of good solutions to add up. Here is one incoherent idea; perhaps we can fix this idea until it seems viable.

I have recently become familiar with the concept of ‘service learning’. The idea is simple enough.. Students work in their field for free in order that they gain experience. Could this be widely implemented to better prepare our students for a competitive Ireland in the future? Could the government provide tax incentives to business to take on student in order that the infrastructure of the country be improved?

Perhaps, FAS could implement the scheme and turn the system into something productive for the country, maybe even save a euro or two? Companies may be able to afford to take on jobs that benefit the country, i.e. broadband infrastructure. Why stop at public infrastructure, what about public services, NGO’s, tourism etc. The student, and future employee, gets practical field study and a better education. Maybe with the reintroduction of fees, companies could provide scholarships for the best students. Similarly, community organisations should, perhaps, take a more active role in the public services. This may increase awareness of social issues, and create a more transparent public service.

What do you think?

Basically two things, cut spending and cut taxes. Balance the budget.

P. Breathnach

SLUSK wrote: »

Basically two things, cut spending and cut taxes. Balance the budget.

That's three things.

There isn't scope to cut taxes: you cannot reasonably cut spending by enough to balance the budget.

Amhran Nua

Some good ideas in this thread, a couple of points though - students working for free still need to eat, and graduates would be way too inexperienced to even think about leading a country. Not to mention if this is based on the concept of intelligence, there are plenty of highly intelligent people who never graduated.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

There isn't scope to cut taxes: you cannot reasonably cut spending by enough to balance the budget.

Yes you can. The first and largest step would be to go Dutch on healthcare, thats half the deficit gone right there.

97i9y3941

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Yes you can. The first and largest step would be to go Dutch on healthcare, thats half the deficit gone right there.

Dutch system is good,but if ireland adapoted it be like our current welfare+grant system which is complete b#llocks,for instance,you could live in a mansion,put on a poor mouth,and get your dole/grant for college,because it only accesses your income...

RealityCheck

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Yes you can. The first and largest step would be to go Dutch on healthcare, thats half the deficit gone right there.

Geographically you are not comparing like with like. Holland is a densely populated country about the size of Munster, Ireland is more sparcely populated and is much bigger geographically. Therefore it will not be as easy to implement without there being much larger costs involved in comparison to the Dutch system. I dont think you will half the defecit that easily.

Amhran Nua

Fred83 wrote: »

Dutch system is good,but if ireland adapoted it be like our current welfare+grant system which is complete b#llocks,for instance,you could live in a mansion,put on a poor mouth,and get your dole/grant for college,because it only accesses your income...

Well the Dutch system is insurance funded so they can look after fraud on that end, they're well used to it. The lower income families receiving government support on their insurance will work from the same systems as welfare now.

RealityCheck wrote: »

Therefore it will not be as easy to implement without there being much larger costs involved in comparison to the Dutch system. I dont think you will half the defecit that easily.

Interstingly there are first world countries larger than Ireland which have much lower costs for healthcare - the geographical size of the country isn't a major issue in that regard, its the built up costs over the last ten or twelve years which are far out of touch with reality.

The Dutch system works by putting hospitals in competition with one another, there is actually a leaderboard for that purpose, which improves service and lowers prices, but this is where geographical disposition becomes a problem in implementing their system in Ireland. In about one third of the country, there isn't a lot of competition for hospitals because they are rural areas. If people have an emergency they go to the same place regardless.

We would envision this being dealt with by mandating that insurance companies fund a minimum service in terms of rural healthcare, setting up small clinics with standardised limited capability to deal with the 95% of repetitive and non critical care that people need, with fast emergency services connected to more capable municipal health centres.

Dutch health officials have gone on record as saying their system could work quite well here, and it would be in cooperation with them that we would be setting this up.