Winners Of "Your Country, Your Call" Announced

The winners have been announced of a competition organised, by Martin McAleese, the President's husband, to counteract the pessimism about Ireland's future.

The "Your Country, Your Call" competition was launched in February, with an appeal for ideas from members of the public that would create prosperity and jobs and help get Ireland out of recession.

More than 9,000 ideas were submitted.

The two winning proposals suggested positioning Ireland to take advantage of the new digital global economy.

Neil Leyden, a digital media consultant, proposed establishing a global media hub in Ireland, to make Ireland a centre for the distribution ad creation of content.

Mr Leyden said the content industry should be treated like the pharmaceutical and financial services industries were in the past.

He sees the potential for up to 45,000 new jobs.

The other winning suggestion came from father and son duo Colm MacFhlannachadha and Cianán Clancy.

It says Ireland should become a "data storage island".

The plan involves developing "mega data centres" in excess of 200,000 sq ft each - to place Ireland as a world leader in cloud computing, source information storage and online gaming development.

The pair predicts that by 2020 the amount of data created and distributed worldwide on the internet will grow by 44 times.

The two competition winners received a prize of €100,000 each at a ceremony in Dublin last Friday night.

Their proposals will now go into development, with a fund of €500,000 and support from a special advisory group.

Dr Martin McAleese said he was very satisfied with the quality of the submissions received, and he looked forward to realising the ambition of creating jobs and prosperity.