Ireland's Budget 2011 continued.

A major mistake I believe Ireland has made in their trading and fiscal policies is to depend too much on the European Union. Ireland has friends in every country in the world and we should  not have to rely so much on Europe. We have huge trade with the United States so why not with China? Why not more trade and international agreements with India, Pakistan, Dubai, Suadia Arabia and Middle East Countries? With regard to China if we could get agreements on trade and travel with China it would mean a massive boost to our economy. Except for Student exchanges we do not even allow Chinese citizens to travel to Ireland and we have a very narrow visa arrangement with that country. One of my proposals to boost the economy was to build a new all Ireland railway system which would make trains available to every city, town and village in this country. To comply with the new green and climate controls this country will have to implement we need to drastically reduce the use of the car. So where are we going to get the money to build such a network? Well we tender for the network in China. But in order for Chinese contractors to come to Ireland we will have to relax our travel restrictions on China. China would be invited to build this railway network and to take the profits from fares collected when it is up and running. In return for China's entry into the Irish economy China would be asked to take 50% of its employees from the Irish population. There would be a considerable saving to the Irish economy as this programme progresses. Less private transport would be needed so there would be less cars on the road. So great savings would be made in the economy by cutting back on road building. The green house gases would be reduced. Motor vehicle tax should be increased substantially over the next 20 years to encourage people off the roads. Grants from Government and the EU and maybe even from the Chinese Government would be made available to build this railway system and other  public transport systems. This plan would provide thousands of jobs, bring us into line with Climate regulations, boost the economy by bringing new people into Ireland. Many other projects could be set up with other countries. The USA is an example of how a country has built a healthy economy by making it easy to emigrate into their country. So why not Ireland?

Justice Proposals

This country spends far too much money on fighting crime. For the same reasons as we don't have an efficient transport and rail system, a useless health system, a corrupt financial system. Ireland needs to implement, no, create a justice system because we don't really have one. Firstly we need to make up  our minds what we want our justice system to do? I studied A level law many years ago and was surprised when my lecturer announced that governments don't necessarily want to defeat crime. Crime, he explained is an industry, a vital part of the British economy. It employs tens if not hundreds of thousands of British people, police officers, prison officers, Court officers, Social Services, medical staff. So do we need crime as part of our legal system to reduce the dole queues or do we aim for ending crime in Ireland. What do we want to do with the criminal? Do we want to rehabilitate criminals in the criminal justice system, make them better people and let them back into society?. Do we want to get revenge against the criminal, lock them up for eternity, punish them? Well I have an opinion on this subject. I don't regard crime, law and order as an essential part of our industrial base to reduce the dole queues. Many criminals if not most of them are beyond rehabilitation, so I rule out too much molly coddling if for no other reason that we can't spend money on better conditions for criminals before we spend money on special needs children, paediatric nurses and primary school eduction. Where a prisoner seeks help to better themselves then that help should be given. My policy would not be to rehabilitate, to take revenge or to punish. I want to separate the criminal from the rest of society. If someone commits a crime and their punishment is ten years in jail then that's what they should serve. If that person commits a crime again and is given a ten year sentence that sentence would be doubled. If criminals knew this was the policy they would stop. Crimes of violence would mean in my policy that the person committing the violent crime would be likely to spend most of their lives in prison. Separated from society. I would also differentiate between victims of crime. And Ireland already do this in that its a life sentence for murder, supposed to be 25 years and for the murder of a police officer its 35 or 45 years. The tariffs on all crime need to be reviewed and amended. For instance a crime of violence against a 25 year old man which draws a 10 year sentence would draw a twenty five year sentence for the same crime against a 6 year old child. Rape of a 25 year old person should draw a life sentence which ends up about 12.5 years. Rape of a child under 16 years would draw a 45 year sentence. Violence against the elderly, infirm or special needs persons would attract a much higher sentence. Three convictions for any crime of violence would result in a 45 year sentence to run consecutively. It would be my intention to end crime, not create an industry out of it.

I will of course be criticised by human rights campaigners who don't believe in human rights for child rape victims, pensioners, medical staff, police officers, fire officers or the 90% of people who are not involved in crime. I will also be criticised because it will cost too much to keep all these criminals locked up. Well I have the answer to that too. On 1st January 2011 there would be a general amnesty for all prisoners held in prisons in the Republic of Ireland. The only exception to this rule would be those convicted of murder, rape and grievous bodily harm or other serious crimes of violence. Violent prisoners who have less than one year of their sentence to serve can apply to be considered for parole and be released under the amnesty if a special group of experts support their application. Any person released under the amnesty who is convicted within ten years of their release of a similar offence or another serious offence would serve their new sentence and any previous sentence handed down in the past ten years. Prisons have to be paid for and I suggest innovative and radical ways of paying for them. Firstly, I believe income tax itself is a counter productive method of paying for any of our services. So either with or separately from income tax there should be a Justice and Prison Levy if for no other reason to make the taxpayer realise that we have a problem that needs to be addressed. The Irish recession has resulted in some 360,000 empty houses on ghost estates being left to rot on the Irish landscape. Mountjoy Prison must be closed down and four or five or as many as required of these estates would get planning permission to become new open prisons. Dangerous prisoners would be transferred to Portlaoise prison and four new prisons would be built over a ten year period. These prisons would be state of the art prisons which would require very little officer supervision. In fact they would be so state of the art that the entire care of prisoners would be carried out by remote control. A new policy of allowing and encouraging prisoners to work, earn money, pay tax etc, separated from society on the outside world but allowed to have their own human rights, their own separate society within the prisons system. All prison systems would be controlled by automated locking systems, CCTV, Audio instructions etc. Three prison officers could control a prison with 1,000 prisoners at night. Prisoners would volunteer to complete the Ghost estates and would be paid a special prison rate for their work. You see there would be many more prisoners in the first two to three years of all this new justice policy change. Then crime would fall off dramatically as repeat offenders would no longer be released. Crime classes for the young prisoner would end because the crime teachers would no longer be on the outside. They would not be released.

The media in Ireland have had pretty much a free ride on crime and criminals. News stories in the tabloids have made billions from crime stories both in the courts and from people locked up in prisons for horrific crimes against Irish and British citizens. Famous and infamous prisoners would be allowed to publish their stories, books etc so long as no offence is given to a victim. A newspaper would be allowed to visit a prison to interview a mass murderer. If the going rate for such a story, say by the News of the World was €2m. Well the prisoner would be paid €10k, the victim(s) would be paid 50% of the €2m and the prison authorities and the Courts and Justice system would take the remainder. The media could and should get back to providing a service to the Irish people. Billions of Revenue could be collected from Newspapers, Television and Radio for opening up the prison and justice systems in this country. I'm positive that there are many, many ways of financing the Irish Justice system. We have become such a stuck in the mud, set in our ways society that rejects change and carry out our affairs at a snails pace. We need an electric shock to our whole governance. I'm available to pull the switch.