The FFG Five-in-One Comes Back for Another Round - This Time For The 37 Year Olds!
You see, the five-in-one scheme is the strategy through which FFG announce all solutions to the various crises we face today.
In the now decade of the grand coalition between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government, they have managed to accomplish a lot. Breaking records in housing stock (least available long-term lets in history of the state), in housing prices (highest rents in history of the state), and evictions (more than during the famine!), and that’s not even to mention their zealous investment in our time-honoured national traditions (driving young people to emigrate en-mass).
But perhaps my favourite of their little inventions is a political manoeuvre I like to call the five-in-one scheme. It’s a fun little trick, one that passes over most people unnoticed. You see, the five-in-one scheme is the strategy through which FFG announce all solutions to the various crises we face today.
The first time I noticed this pattern was with an issue which directly impacted my life: the rollout of the free contraception scheme for 17-25 year olds (I do wonder how this was decided as the age range, but that is a question for another essay). It was first announced in the Programme for Government in 2020. Then, in the budget that autumn, it was delayed one year to build capacity for roll-out. Then, again, in 2021, it was announced that the Government would be launching a scheme for free contraception for 17-25 year olds. Hurrah! Rang out the praise across the country, once more, for the Government finally doing something for young women.
Finally, then, in 2022, came the budget. What was announced once more? You may be able to guess: FREE CONTRACEPTION FOR 17-25 year olds! And this time with a promise for expansion to wider age groups. Each year since the government has managed to wrangle some free PR out of this scheme, as they delay expansions again and again by adding new women, year group by year group. By now it’s provided nearly a decade of credit for implementing a scheme that was introduced in Seanad when I was only 17.
This is not to say that it is not a good thing that they are doing, but merely that the government are able to get away with accomplishing one thing for years on end, and strategically present themselves as providing new public services, and have it reported as such, when in most other countries this rollout would be widely viewed as time-wasting disaster. But for them, it’s five schemes in one.
