We can’t imagine what more can be said by anyone concerning the right things to do in order to facilitate happiness and prosperity in 2010 and beyond.

From the ‘live love’ message delivered by the head of the National Transformation Programme (NTP), the Reverend Al Miller, on New Year’s Eve to the expertly articulated message from our Prime Minister Bruce Golding, the sentiment is hardly profound. It cannot be business as usual.

“… increasing further the flow of credit to micro, small and medium-size enterprises (among other initiatives) is our strategic direction because they are the surest way to fast-start the economy and create jobs,” Mr Golding tells us in his New Year’s message.

“2010, in many ways, will be a defining year. It will pose many challenges that we must be bold enough to confront and overcome. It will also provide opportunities that we must be alert enough to take advantage of,” he adds.

All easier said, of course, than done.

For the ‘many challenges’ that slide so easily off our prime minister’s tongue are, in reality, ghosts of the past, laughing in the face of his administration’s apparent inability to exorcise them.

It would be cliché, within the context of this space’s previous treatment of these issues, to elaborate on them here.

Suffice it to say that we do not think — given some of the characters that this Government has embraced — that it would be too much of a leap for it to recognise and acknowledge the opportunities inherent in the UK Government’s Facilitated Returns Scheme.

According to yesterday’s edition, Jamaicans who are currently serving time in UK prisons can take advantage of a £5,000 grant if they accept deportation before their sentences expire.

Of course, it’s a rather self-serving scheme on the part of the UK Government, which knows that the cost of housing this unsavoury demographic is far higher than any one-off grant they could possibly offer.

But it is, after all, money — much more money than most local institutions are prepared to lend — that with the right knowledge can be employed in some of the same strategic directions of which the prime minister speaks.

We are prepared to believe that an ex-convict with more than half-a-million Jamaican dollars to his credit is a much better candidate for rehabilitation into our society than one without.

Better yet, an ex-convict with half-a-million Jamaican dollars plus some intervention in the form of government training to constructively employ his resources.

That, as opposed to bellyaching about the wickedness of the scheme, is perhaps where the debate should be going at this time.

For given the free rein that some questionable characters in this country enjoy, one might well be forgiven for asking who are we to oppose the return of our ‘tainted’ Jamaican brothers and sisters?

At least they, unlike their high-profile counterparts, have paid, in part, for their sins.