‘Implementation’ interpretation is ambiguous

GOOD ideas are the bedrock of any plan – putting them into practice is the tricky part.

The Government might do well to remember this when announcing grand plans, proposals and initiatives.

If you can’t follow it up – why bother announcing it in the first place?

Earlier this year, a high-profile PR campaign, The Ideas Campaign, was set up to help stimulate the economy.

The campaign was thought up by Aileen O’Toole, managing director of AMAS, a consultancy firm of which many government agencies anddepartments are a client.

Independently run, the thinking behind the campaign is to be applauded. It called for ideas from the public to help stimulate a new type of national discussion about Ireland’s economic problems.

Fair enough.

The campaign culminated in an “action plan” based on ideas proposed, which was then submitted to the Government.

In July, Minister for Science and Technology and Natural Resources Conor Lenihan announced that 17 of the ideas would be “implemented as quickly as possible”.

Since then, however, it has been very difficult to ascertain exactly what has been done practically.

Several requests to the department of Enterprise Trade and Employment have yielded little or no information regarding implementation.

In fact, it seems the Government’s interpretation of “implementation” is an ambiguous one.

For example, one idea was to create a new Volunteer Corps to engage the unemployed in community and voluntary work in Ireland and internationally, without losing their unemployment benefits.

The Government’s response to this was: “The Government welcomes the idea that we should use the current difficult economic period and associated unemployment as an opportunity to promote volunteering by Irish people, both at home and abroad.

“There are 21 volunteering centres nationwide which are an important resource for organisations who wish to identify volunteers and as a central location for individuals to register their interest. For more information about volunteering opportunities in your area, log on to www.volunteer.ie.”

Hardly what you could call implementation.

Further queries yielded this response: “As indicated in the press release of July 21 last, the Government had analysed the details of the submission through the Cabinet Committee on Economic Renewal. The Government was keen to ensure that each suggestion made was considered fully, by both individual departments and collectively to ensure synergies and the exploitation of opportunities where possible, including linkages with the “Smart Economy” framework. The Government is continuing to examine the feasibility of other ideas included in the campaign’s action plan and has committed to six-monthly reviews of implementation of the Ideas Campaign.”

While it’s not that surprising nothing much has happened, what is baffling is why the Government seems so interested in this campaign on one hand – by making grand announcements and promising six monthly reviews – but completely disinterested on the other as it seems none of the ideas have really been implemented in any meaningful way.