How would you improve Ireland in 10 ideas.

meeeeh

the_pen_turner wrote: »

make a rule that you have to keep you house clean and tidy at the front. ( i mean not a siht hole) . if you dont someone will come and clean it and paint it etc and you will charge you.
especially for abandoned houses

Welcome to the Disneyland.

Anyway I'm not sure I would want that. Rough areas should look like rough areas, how else would you know to avoid them.

nice_guy80

gramar wrote: »

..says ancapailldorcha...

I'd criminalise Irish
the Irish language would probably grow once it was outlawed
seems to happen to everything else that is banned

Yourself isit

1) elect judges. Bring in impeachment for the kind of muppets who leave rapists go free or bail known dangerous criminals who will of course use the bail time to engage in free criminality.
2) increase sentencing for serious crimes and have nobody walking the streets with multiple convictions.
3) have a housing policy designed to stabilise prices. That is build more houses when supply is low, but curtail building is a surplus of housing is being produced.
4) managers in the HSE and other public service to be banned from unionisation. And firable. They can keep their pensions at a pro rated basis unless fired for corruption or nepotism. Unions are needed for the front line troops.
5) fire lots of incompetent or corrupt officials. Lots.
6) hold high level public servants accountable to the public. That is they, not just the minister, appear in public forums to defend their competency. Get them on Vincent brown. Etc.
6) the gardai need an internal affairs division.
8) the garda need to expand their white collar criminal investigative teams. Next banking crisis needs more jailed bankers.
9) massive two decades infrastructure investment funded by national and local infrastructure bonds
10) aim to reduce tax on earned income and increase it on unearned income.

I didn't mention abortion as that's an issue for the people not the government.

The don'ts :

Don't stop funding Irish. Don't remove it from the curriculum. Keep bus eireann. Do not privatise public transport although we should have a mixed system. No legalisation of drugs.

melloa

free beer for everybody

4068ac1elhodqr

1. Place junkies in compulsory isolated, custom built, remote and isolated 3mth detox facilities. Until sound in health, ideally in mind also.

2. Also place 5-strikes petty criminals in separate similar facilities/terms with a focus on proper societal reintegration, education, psycho-re-orientation and basic skills training.

3. Very high-risk offenders to be placed on an alcratraz type offshore unit, neuro-chipped and castrated if needed.

4. Build a new high-rise Dubai-esq green energy innovation city in the geological centre of the island. Served with 760 mph hyperloop monorail pods to all major population areas, typical 20mins commute for everyone who is office or light-manufacturing based. Previous old town/city centre offices can be converted to housing, leisure and recreation facilities.

5. Replace 90% of civil service admin or pen pushers with ai systems. Allows more funding for health, policing and focus on other 'quality of life' index categories.

6. Replace Irish language with automation-ai-robotic studies in all schools (keep it just for novel tourism specific areas), this will aid the coming 4th industrial revolution.

7. Engage weather modification programs to reduce rainfall and cloud cover, also begin massive SW coastal sea-reclamation up to full territorial boundaries.

8. Introduce multiple re-forestation zonal areas for Ireland, which currently has the 'second-smallest' forested areas in Europe.

9. Make all work weeks 3.5 days maximum with deliberate focus on work-life balance and zero unemployment. This enables 24hr global respondent workforce running on constant triple 8hr day cycles and in either early week and late week alternations. Guaranteed basic jobs for 16yo school leavers without significant academic abilities. Childcare issues reduced.

10. New points based migration, as automation takes the world’s jobs, only so many will be required by 2030.

nice_guy80

put serial offenders for petty crime and road traffic offenses out in bright orange jumpsuits to clean the rubbish along roads, clean out the canals, paint over graffiti etc

build proper mixed use apartment buildings (studios, one bedroom, 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom, ground floor offices, communal washing facilities and bike storage in the basement, communal storage in the attic space) in the city centres which are then run by the residents - like they have had in Scandinavian countries for the last 100 years

hire external officer to head up the Garda

stop allowing our fishing rights to be given to the EU for NOTHING

Proper regeneration of local villages and small towns by giving people access to small sites to build their own houses within a cluster arrangement - keep shops, post offices, small schools open

properly fund the preschool and childcare sector. it should not be a for profit business model. the state should be picking up the tab and ensuring staff have high qualifications, instead of the current yellow pack approach - low wages, profits for creche owners

reform of the legal system and medical profession. both are far too closed. the medical profession themselves shouldn't have a say in how many doctors are trained every year. that's why there is a shortage and why the salaries are so high. we should import a few hundred from Cuba. Or send our doctors out there to be trained. they'd do it cheaper. the legal profession is complete sham of a system - an old boys and girls club.

less emphasis on academic professions for those doing the leaving cert and valuing the trades and craftspeople

get rid of all churches in the running of schools. if parents want their children to learn about a celestial dictator then the taxpayer should not be funding that and the parents can bring them to sunday school at mass (if the parents actually bother to go to mass)

more cycle paths and secure bicycle locking facilities

Tap rooms - please make this happen. the licencing laws need a radical overhaul in Ireland. Why can't I buy a drink after 10pm in an Off Licence? Why can't I buy a drink on Good Friday. Crazy! We're a REPUBLIC, not a church state. Maybe McDowell was onto something in regard to drink laws?

Larbre34

To be fair, no 10 ideas to improve a Country should be so unambitious as to refer to small fry stuff like RTE and marijuana yay or nay or abortion yay or nay. If the Country needs reform, it should be total overhaul of the political and bureaucratic system to bring about a true Republic / representative democracy.

I wont go so far as 10 ideas but among the stuff I would do to affect change from the top down would be:

1) Remove the executive from the Oireachtas. We do not need both a Taoiseach and a President, the President should be elected directly and should hold executive power with a cabinet of experts in their field, not politicians. The Oireachtas should be the legislature and should check and balance the President and verify all public positions of power. The focus of TDs would then never be about getting a ministerial gig.

2) Abolish the Seanad and reduce the Dáil to about 120 seats. We are a nation of 4.6m bodies, 218 national politicians is a joke. The 120 deputies should be elected by list system, the parish pump needs to disappear from national interests. This would be balanced out below.

3) Abolish the joke County Council system. The fact there are 180 Councillors in the 4 Dublin counties would be hilarious if it wasnt so wasteful and inefficient. Divide the Country into about 5 regions with real local Government powers, covering health, social and education spending as well as local planning and recreation. All planning should conform to a strict national strategy or be vetoed at national level. Regional Councillors should number no more than 40 in each region and should be elected, full time and salaried. No vacancies should ever be co-opted.

4) All top public servants should be elected, on an alternate cycle to the President etc. This should include the Chief Justice, Garda Comm, DPP, Central Bank Governor, Health, Infrastructure and Education bosses etc. Their roles should be defined in legislation and open to criminal and financial sanction for non-performance / malfeasance.

5) A total review of public services should examine which are suitable as national bodies (police, fire, ambulance, water, infrastructure) and which should have regional setups (health, education, social care, conservation, recreation)

6) The state should regulate but not participate in markets where maximum efficency is offered by the private sector. Public Service Obligation should be carefully examined and contracted in each case. The likes of CIE belongs in the past.

7) The people should have a system of public initiative and citizen initiated referendums to complement and challenge the legislature and executive, like in Switzerland. Its the closest thing to true democratic participation. It would deal with those social and spending issues, like drugs and abortion and anti-social problems and RTE. The Citizens Assembly is a good idea, but should be broadened and should look at reviewing the whole constitution for fitness for purpose. It would have to be reviewed anyway to bring about all the above.

222233

1. Have people on the dole and job seekers allowance work for the state in return for their payment ( obviously with the exception of disibility allowance etc.)

2. Survey the accomodation that the people registerimg as homeless are moving out of, e.g if they are 18 and werw living with parents then register as homeless.

3. Have cyclists complete a driving and theory test.

4. Remove irish and religion from school cirricumums.

5. Legalise abortion

6. Split up hospitals completely into private and public eg. Stop sending private patients to public hospitals and keep the beds in public hospitals for public patients, increase the capacity and soecialities in the priavte hospitals to help with congestion in public ones.

7. Fix all the windy crappy roads, more motorways.

8. Ensure paople who have commited more than 1 crime at some point go to jail.

9. Spend less money on ceos and organisations tbat actually do little to help causes but instead pay staff huge wages and expenses and put the money to actual good use.

10. Reform the health and AGS entirely

scoey

Zero tolerance on drug possession and use. Enforce the law. Focusing on dealers and suppliers is doomed to fail unless you create major deterrants to use.

Harsher penalties for violent crimes and burglaries.

More police on regular, visible patrol in the many crime ridden areas of the country.

Japan style community police boxes with 3 or so police in each, as opposed to the police all hiding in centralised stations.

Take junkies off the streets and put them in a forced rehab camp cold turkey.

Massive housebuilding efforts by the government. Don't repeat the mistakes of the past and turn them into ghettos. Provide security at flats etc if necessary.

Put the long term unemployed to work doing something useful to society for 25 hours a week in return for the dole. Being idle long term is bad for people.

Cut the dole and housing benefits etc of any violent criminal or drug dealer to zero and throw them out on the streets. If they have children, take them into state care.

Fix the system so that it is impossible for someone to earn more on benefits than they would working.

nozzferrahhtoo

TheFitz13 wrote: »

Why? I feel like they're good ideas

Ah all discussions on progress and change will be punctuated by the doomsayers who simply predict detrimental effects of anything suggested. No actual evidence or arguments for their position, just shrill declarations of "It will all come crashing down!!!!!" with some form of scary jazz hands but no actual substance.

In the SHORT TERM however they are partially right. Take the 24 hour licensing of pubs for example........ or at least any licensing that extends their hours long past what they currently are.

I would predict that for a short time there would be a bit of carnage with that. People who abuse it, or do not know their limits, or simply over do it and so forth. But they will mature and learn as a society and it will likely be perfectly ok in the end.

I live in Germany currently and their licensing laws are fairly liberal. In Frankfurt for example I would not be hard pushed to find a beer on tap any ANY hour. Yet I feel safer, calmer and that the city is more at peace walking around at 3am than I would in Dublin at 3pm. They have quite a mature relationship with alcohol in general here, the carnage of Oktoberfest not withstanding.

Of course it has it's problems, I would be the last to say the ENTIRE attitude to alcohol here is perfect. But the hyperbolic doomsaying of suggesting it would collapse in on itself within a week is just complete nonsense from the type of people who are stuck in a rut where they think "conservatism" means literally conserving everything AS IS UNCHANGED for all time, and change is bad.

Stonedpilot

Get rid of freemasonry would help. Dail Eireann efficetively a lodge.

jimgoose

Widen the tax base, slacken off the currently criminal marginal rate, and bin the bastard USC. Make it some way worthwhile for some of us to chew through the leather straps in the morning.

Yourself isit

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Ah all discussions on progress and change will be punctuated by the doomsayers who simply predict detrimental effects of anything suggested. No actual evidence or arguments for their position, just shrill declarations of "It will all come crashing down!!!!!" with some form of scary jazz hands but no actual substance.

In the SHORT TERM however they are partially right. Take the 24 hour licensing of pubs for example........ or at least any licensing that extends their hours long past what they currently are.

I would predict that for a short time there would be a bit of carnage with that. People who abuse it, or do not know their limits, or simply over do it and so forth. But they will mature and learn as a society and it will likely be perfectly ok in the end.

I live in Germany currently and their licensing laws are fairly liberal. In Frankfurt for example I would not be hard pushed to find a beer on tap any ANY hour. Yet I feel safer, calmer and that the city is more at peace walking around at 3am than I would in Dublin at 3pm. They have quite a mature relationship with alcohol in general here, the carnage of Oktoberfest not withstanding.

Of course it has it's problems, I would be the last to say the ENTIRE attitude to alcohol here is perfect. But the hyperbolic doomsaying of suggesting it would collapse in on itself within a week is just complete nonsense from the type of people who are stuck in a rut where they think "conservatism" means literally conserving everything AS IS UNCHANGED for all time, and change is bad.

An even bigger problem is assuming that laws make culture. If Ireland had Germany's licensing laws it would have Irish drinking culture and German licensing laws not German laws and drinking culture.

Doctor Nick

Jack the Stripper wrote: »

Give all the no hopers on the rock and roll a shovel and put them unblocking road drainage.

Impressed it took 8 posts for the dole bashing to start.

1. Make nosey f*ers mind their own business.

2. Finally put a stop to corruption in politics and An Garda Siochana.

3. Abolish RTE

4. Make recycling mandatory

5. Severely punish flytippers.

6. Probably the most important (IMO) is to completely revamp our health system. Adopt the Dutch model and get rid of the overpriced penpushers that are currently driving it into the ground and putting out most vulnerable into early graves.

jimgoose

Doctor Nick wrote: »

Impressed it took 8 posts for the dole bashing to start.

1. Make nosey f*ers mind their own business.

I'm assuming all these people who advocate "Social Welfare" beneficiaries being thrown into the salt-mines are also including people with children, doctors giving the medical card system absolute holly, and various fat cats availing of Section 50 tax-breaks and similar! :pac:

nozzferrahhtoo

Yourself isit wrote: »

An even bigger problem is assuming that laws make culture. If Ireland had Germany's licensing laws it would have Irish drinking culture and German licensing laws not German laws and drinking culture.

It is not the assumption that the laws make the culture, but that they are one powerful influence on the path a culture takes. Culture is not static. Nor are laws. And I think any change to one will potentially cause changes in the other.

Help!!!!

1: No Politician will earn more than €100,000 per annum
2: No one in RTE will earn more than €100,000 per annum
3: Legalise Marijuana sold via each county council, profits to be used locally
4: Criminals in jail pay towards their keep, those on benefits will forfeit their dole money to the prison
Bring in electronic tagging, to be used on people who dont pay tv license etc so real criminals can be locked up
5: Less wasting of money in Gardai,HSE,Army etc due to budgets. Encourage to not spend the full budget if they dont need to. Any surplus money goes back into the pot to help which ever needs it
6: Open more apprentice education facilities around the country
7: Cut council rates on new stores opening, first 3 months free rates for new businesses
8: More Gardai, Gardai to return to rural towns.
9: Any Politician/Guard etc paid from the public purse caught taking back handers will be jailed
10: All long term unemployed will work for their local council 1 day per week fixing up the local community

Yourself isit

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

It is not the assumption that the laws make the culture, but that they are one powerful influence on the path a culture takes. Culture is not static. Nor are laws. And I think any change to one will potentially cause changes in the other.

You're probably wrong. The reason why Germans can have licensing laws that are liberal is because their drinking culture permits it. The laws didn't make the culture. The existing conservative drinking culture permits the liberal laws.

OldGoat

Stop the idea of a 'career' in politics. Politics should be vocational.

Right to vote should only be given to those who pass an examined course in critical thinking.

Create a 'metropolitan police force' for the greater Dublin area. Tax Dublin residents and business to pay for it.

big syke

1. Legalise all drugs (yes even Heroin). Make addiction a health issue rather than a crime issue
2. Spend the potential billions generated from the above to educate young children about abuse of drugs and alcohol
3. Bring in 3 strikes for prison sentences (to end the various criminals with 30/40/50+ convictions
4. Rental Sector - Rent control. Protection for Landlord and Tenant
5. Transport - Its a mess. Press ahead with metro north but also look south and outside of Dublin
6. Social Welfare - Child Benefit should be means tested. Also work for the dole i.e. Charity/Community work
7. Alcohol Culture - We are a mess. No drink until 18 is not working. We need to educate from a very early age and introduce responsible alcohol use from an early age i.e. glass of wine with dinner.


Cant think of any more at the minute.

nozzferrahhtoo

Yourself isit wrote: »

You're probably wrong.

That is a bit general. Wrong where exactly? I said culture is not static, that it changes over time. I do not think that is wrong. I said law is not static, is also changes all the time. So that is not wrong. And then I suggested changing one can influence changes on the other..... and I am not seeing what is wrong with that statement either.

But it does require not just a change in the law to change the culture. The middle man..... like the pub owner...... has to actually avail of the change before we can put it to any real test.

Take for example the culture we have around closing times. Ordering multiple drinks at the end of a night of drinking and then consuming them faster than the drinks preceding it due to having to finish them before being chucked out.

That would certainly be affected by pubs having longer, or even no, closing time for a start, and hammering a larger quantity of drink in in a shorter space of time is likely the cause of a lot of the detrimental issues around our pub culture from medical issues.... to violence issues....... to people thinking they feel ok to drive but by the time they get behind the wheel they are a LOT drunker than they were when they made that decision. And so on.

Alas, in the UK for example 10 years after 24 hour drinking licenses were brought in..... closing times were extended by an average of only 30 minutes. So gauging the effect of a law change on a public culture is curtailed by the middle man not actually implementing the change.

So while I would never say "We need to do this, it is DEFINITELY going to work" I would equally balk at jumping to the OTHER extreme and saying "Nah, the holy grail of Continental EU drinking culture is a dream we will never reach" and throwing my hands up at the attempt.

The one thing that confused me, and I would love to talk to actual police people on this, is that the police in the UK say that the change in drinking laws in those 10 years meant they saw the same quantity of crime, but spread out over more hours of the night. And this was a problem.

In my head that does not parse well and I would love to have it explained. I would have thought responding to, say, 100 crimes over 6 hours was much easier than responding to 100 crimes in 1 or 2 hours.

But perhaps what they mean is that it is harder to maintain a visible police presence for 6 hours than 2 hours. But I would have thought if you had 30 men to respond to 100 crimes you would rather the crimes be spaced out rather than all happening at once.

But certainly if there are no good reasons FOR maintaining such laws, then any potential for affecting culture changes would be an argument FOR abolishing them. As the BBC noticed when it reported on the 10 year anniversary of the 24 drink laws "It was reported that the act would lead to round-the-clock drinking and there were warnings that extended hours would cause chaos. The Royal College of Physicians said it would increase alcohol consumption. Police chiefs complained that their forces would be stretched. One judge said that easy access to alcohol was breeding "urban savages"."

And none of that seems to have happened.

Yourself isit wrote: »

The laws didn't make the culture.

And if you re-read my post you will see I entirely agreed with that. I do not think laws MAKE the culture, but I would find it equally ridiculous to assume the laws do not heavily influence it at all. They are two extremes between which I expect the actual truth to lie.

dinorebel

Beyondgone wrote: »

Even Fosters?

Especially Fosters.

Your Face

Just the one point and I include myself in this due to personal magnanimity.

1. Don't put anyone on this thread in charge.

weldoninhio

17larsson wrote: »

Opt out organ donation so everyone is automatically signed up to donate. If they don't want to donate their organs when they die they have to let the state know.
Many countries already do this, it makes so much sense

If someone feels strongly enough about organ donation they can carry a card. You shouldn't have to jump through hoops to stop your body being harvested after death.

Widdershins

I'd be worried an opt out would leave people open to malpractice. Unlikely, maybe, but still. I don't believe in opt-outs anyway, I think they're immoral. It should never be assumed you'd want to do something that, normally consent is required for, unless you explicitly state otherwise.

To fix the country, we need to fix overspending and over-administration in the HSE, Gardai and the government in general. Most of these are cluttered with superfluous pen pushers.

pumpkin4life

1: Leave the E.U.

2: Don't repeal the eight.

3: Enforce a strict, controlled immigration policy and borders system.

4: Cut out the public sector by 75%+, fire most of these people. Those who are left in the public sector:

Must have a lot of relevant private sector work experience and must have skin in the game as well. If your department fùcks up, then you go down as well. When I was working in the public sector, I saw AOs on 40 k who didn't know how to use excel and took hour plus long tea breaks. Fùck these people.

5: No more T.V license and no more Bus Eireann subsidization. Shut it down.

6: No more funding for the arts.

7: Slash taxes by half and stop with this Irish tall poppy syndrome bùll****.

8: Cut the fat off the universities. No more subsidies for non STEM related subjects. No more wasteful spending on administration costs.

9: Proper food and nutrition guidelines based around nutritionally dense, low carbohydrate foods, rather than the calories in/calories out method.

10: Get rid of Ireland's Call for the rugby anthem. For fùcks sake, what the hell is that thing?

Wossack

abolish concurrent sentencing
abolish free legal assistance once candidate hits 100 convictions
candidates hitting 200 convictions will be fired by trebuchet into the sea

ElChe32

Abolish Leitrim.

lazybones32

Your Face wrote: »

Just the one point and I include myself in this due to personal magnanimity.

1. Don't put anyone on this thread in charge.

Oh, you'd be the first to be 're-educated'! And I'd charge your family for it too.

ChikiChiki

Off the top of my head

-Start a huge change programme in the public sector

-Get rid of surplus staff (i.e wasters)

-Implement new technologies and lean practices in PS

-Raise Corp tax rates to 17.5%

- Make Ireland a huge airline hub for transatlantic flights into Europe with a high speed loop rail linking Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick thus encouraging people to spend time here

- Tear up the ridiculous laws stopping us from building skyscrapers with office blocks and apartments. We should be a Singapore of Europe

-Put heavy taxes on online gambling, a hidden crisis

-Put a tiered welfare system in place where basically after a certain period (like 5 years) able bodied people are given food stamps

-Introduce drunk tanks into our cities to keep drunks from clogging up A&E

-Reform parliament, get rid of the senate, introduce performance reviews for politicians. Maybe law where a politician can only do 3 consecutive terms before they have to get back to the real world. No more starting on very high salaries. All expense claims submitted by politicians published on public site after submission.

Your Face

lazybones32 wrote: »

Oh, you'd be the first to be 're-educated'! And I'd charge your family for it too.

I'm probably paying for your families education.

lazybones32

Your Face wrote: »

I'm probably paying for your families education.

And whoever paid for yours didn't invest enough...or wasted their money ( "...paying for your family's education.")

Your Face

lazybones32 wrote: »

And whoever paid for yours didn't invest enough...or wasted their money ( "...paying for your family's education.")

It wasn't singular but perhaps I was too hopeful in thinking you would understand the subtle joke.

annascott

In no particular order:

1) Stop paying welfare for more than one child (money saved could be spent on elder care)
2) Stop church having any say in government matters.
3) Stop church runnlng schools (apart from Sunday schools)
4) Push Gaelic language back to the Gaeltacht areas.
5) Get rid of/ completely overhaul RTÉ
6) Ban non EU or commonwealth immigrants who are not either coming here to work/ study or are financially independent.
7) Remove VRT
8) Allow more big named overseas shops
9) Lift the ban on outsiders buying land and building houses
10) More private health centres and hospitals

fiachr_a

Send all kids with 600 LC points abroad to study.

RayM

Ban everyone who moans about the dole from participating in the workforce for five years (I have a sneaking suspicion that their colleagues would welcome this)
Generous social welfare increase (except for the aforementioned dole moaners - make them live on food stamps)
Generous minimum wage increase
More cycle lanes, funded by a punitive tax on all middle-aged men
Free health care, but only if you're prepared to become an organ donor after you die
Introduce a wealth tax
Free-for-all immigration
Take back the occupied 6
Nationalise all industry
Shoot any dry-dick who goes all *extreme nasal voice* "well, actually..." and tries to tell me (wrongly) that any of my ideas are bad

fiachr_a

Abolish our Film Board, Irish Water has wasted less money.

Professor Moriarty

Never realised there were so many Trump supporters in Ireland.

Tell me how

annascott wrote:

1) Stop paying welfare for more than one child (money saved could be spent on elder care) 2) Stop church having any say in government matters. 3) Stop church runnlng schools (apart from Sunday schools) 4) Push Gaelic language back to the Gaeltacht areas. 5) Get rid of/ completely overhaul RTEÌ 6) Ban non EU or commonwealth immigrants who are not either coming here to work/ study or are financially independent. 7) Remove VRT 8) Allow more big named overseas shops 9) Lift the ban on outsiders buying land and building houses 10) More private health centres and hospitals

Are you Irish?

the_pen_turner

RayM wrote: »

Ban everyone who moans about the dole from participating in the workforce for five years (I have a sneaking suspicion that their colleagues would welcome this)
Generous social welfare increase (except for the aforementioned dole moaners - make them live on food stamps)
Generous minimum wage increase
More cycle lanes, funded by a punitive tax on all middle-aged men
Free health care, but only if you're prepared to become an organ donor after you die
Introduce a wealth tax
Free-for-all immigration
Take back the occupied 6
Nationalise all industry
Shoot any dry-dick who goes all *extreme nasal voice* "well, actually..." and tries to tell me (wrongly) that any of my ideas are bad

There would be some que forming to to tell you howwrong you are. Except the cyclist part.

fiachr_a

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Never realised there were so many Trump supporters in Ireland.

That's what happens when you watch RTÉ.

Billy86

If we're talking unrealistic fantasy plans... build a big, giant subway system across the entire country with quicker express routes for over 100km journeys. Would cost silly money to build, but would be ridiculously handy, mean no waiting for transport in our often horrible, unpredictable weather and would make it far easier for people working in Dublin to live outside it (hopefully fueling those economies and making the country less ultra-centralised), while being a huge help to traffic congestion.

*Wifi enabled, obviously.

Professor Moriarty

Billy86 wrote: »

If we're talking unrealistic fantasy plans... build a big, giant subway system across the entire country with quicker express routes for over 100km journeys. Would cost silly money to build, but would be ridiculously handy, mean no waiting for transport in our often horrible, unpredictable weather and would make it far easier for people working in Dublin to live outside it (hopefully fueling those economies and making the country less ultra-centralised), while being a huge help to traffic congestion.

*Wifi enabled, obviously.

Luckily the OP didn't stipulate that recommendations should be costed. Use your magic wand.

Go Tobban

1. In schools, devote 2 or 3 classes a week to mental health awareness and incorporate some basic aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy also. Teach teenagers coping strategies that'll be of huge benefit to them down the line.

2. Higher taxes on ****ty processed foods and promote real nutrition with tax incentives. We'll reap the benefits of this in the health sector in future generations

3. Introduce a third tax bracket. Middle income earners are getting shafted from every angle.

4. Encourage new foreign direct investment business's to set up in rural parts of Ireland and build the infrastructure to facilitate this. Everybody wins. It would bring the cost of living in Dublin down and revitalise towns throughout Ireland.

5. Mandatory jail terms for anyone in government/power found to be taking back handers. Tackle this issue with real purpose to eradicate cronyism

annascott

Are you Irish?

Yes

osarusan

From this day on, the official language of Ireland will be Swedish. Silence! In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old.

ArnoldJRimmer

1) Move Dublin port up to Malahide/ north Co Dublin
2) Use the vacant land, along with the land around Poolbeg towers to build multiple skyscrapers which will be used for business, residental and retail purposes
3) Incentivise every foreign bank currently based in London to move their European headquarters to Dublin post-Brexit
4) Reduce the amount of social housing in the city centre, and move the residents to somewhere that serves no other purpose, such as Longford
5) Decentralize the government departments, spreading them throughout the country. Tell the unions to get fcuked this time when they inevitably complain. Maybe stick a few in Longford which will have a number of new residents who'll need a job
6) Properly integrate our road and rail network with Norn Iron
7) Run RTE as a business rather than an expensive charity for Tubbs and Darcy
8) Deport Tubbs and Darcy. I'm sure the BBC would love their talents
9) Increased mandatory sentencing for violent crime
10) Increased funding for all sporting bodies on the island

Doctor Nick

Go Tobban wrote: »

1. In schools, devote 2 or 3 classes a week to mental health awareness and incorporate some basic aspects of cognitive behavioral therapy also. Teach teenagers coping strategies that'll be of huge benefit to them down the line.

2. Higher taxes on ****ty processed foods and promote real nutrition with tax incentives. We'll reap the benefits of this in the health sector in future generations

3. Introduce a third tax bracket. Middle income earners are getting shafted from every angle.

4. Encourage new foreign direct investment business's to set up in rural parts of Ireland and build the infrastructure to facilitate this. Everybody wins. It would bring the cost of living in Dublin down and revitalise towns throughout Ireland.

5. Mandatory jail terms for anyone in government/power found to be taking back handers. Tackle this issue with real purpose to eradicate cronyism

Well I'll be damned, a sensible post with good ideas. Go Tobban for Taoiseach.

fiachr_a

Bring back Irish Navy eejits from the Med importing refugees into Europe and send them out to protect our fishing stock from the Spanish.

learn_more

Move it to the middle of the Mediterranean ocean.