Musings from my armchair

It's all good and well to make the great debate while sitting comfortably amongst your friends in a house, pub or café but on closer examination, how pro active are you really?

I remember recently the Irish Government launched an initiative campaign on how to make Ireland a better place. The idea was that you put forward an idea of improving anything in terms of public operations within the country and there was a serious cash prize for the best one etc.

A few friends and I ended up in a local pub and I asked if anyone had heard of the campaign. We then proceeded to come up with the 'solution' to long term unemployment in Ireland. The idea was that a number of organisations in the public sector could offer a set of 'vacacies' to persons who were on a job seekers allowance to come and earn their money in specialised roles within their organisations. The roles would be voluntary but would allow the person who was unemployed practical experience and better their chances of becoming employed again (in theory). This is a short summary of the plan which I still believe is a very valid idea and as long as it was supported by the government, it would be quite easy to roll out. There might even be extra income for the person who worked voluntarily to 'earn' their allowance from the organisation they work in who (with permission from the Dept of Finance) could subsidise part of their earnings.


Sitting back after this very enthusiastic discussion, we all felt very positive about our idea and had full intention of submitting it to the competition mentioned above. Unfortunately, like many great ideas I've had in the past, this one never received an airing. Perhaps those blessed with the ability to come up with the good ideas need to find themselves a less like-minded person to actually get the ball rolling for turning an idea in to an action.


You can put the lack of motivation down to one of two things - pure laziness or scatty genius. Let's lean favourably towards the latter...