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IRELANDStrong response to cost-cutting callMore than 1,000 ideas on how to save money have been sent in to the Irish Government.The avalanche of good advice follows a public consultation project last year supporting a comprehensive review of expenditure. The ideas range from general issues to very detailed proposals based on the experiences of public sector workers such as police, nurses and teachers. The majority of submissions relate to ways of creating more efficiencies or cutting spending in areas like social welfare and health. Many of the submissions expressed dissatisfaction with how payments to job seekers were made and proposed ways to involve the estimated 450,000 unemployed people in community work. Many also suggest tougher requirements for signing on to unemployment benefits and proposed anti-fraud measures such as the introduction of fingerprint scanning or a requirement to produce a passport. One contributor proposed that unemployment benefits should be conditional on being available for community work each week. Another proposed welfare reforms including limiting the duration of the 20 hours that lone parents are allowed to work without it affecting their benefits. Health spending was the source of many submissions, with members of the public suggesting ways of cutting numbers of managers and securing greater efficiency in the dispensing of medicine. A number of submissions urged the Government not to remove a 50c (SA0.62) levy on prescriptions for medical card holders, with pharmacists and doctors saying it helped eliminate the supply of unnecessary medicines. A spokeswoman for the Minister for Public Enterprise, Brendan Howlin, who initiated the consultation, said all suggestions were examined from the point of view of “practicality, feasibility, savings achievable, compliance with European Union and Irish law and standards”. Edition 201, 26 January 2012
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