Bitter internal wrangles lay behind the decision by the Irish government to abolish university tuition fees four years ago, leaked cabinet papers reveal.
They show that Prionsias de Rossa, then minister for social welfare, was strongly opposed to the abolition of fees because the policy would favour higher income families.
And they also reveal a clash between two ministries, with education accusing finance of "gross exaggeration and scaremongering" in one of its arguments about the effects of abolition on university budgets and overdrafts.
The abolition of fees was proposed by Niamh Bhreathnach, then the first Labour Party minister to hold the education portfolio. It received virtually no support from the academic community but it is only now that the cabinet divisions have been made public. At the time Mr de Rossa was head of the minority Democratic Left Party, which has since merged with Labour.
He said that Ms Bhreathnach's plan was regressive and did nothing for real lower income groups. The plan also deferred tackling the inequalities in the means test for higher education grants. Mr de Rossa argued that the grants scheme should be changed to permit a higher income limit to bring in the lower income middle class groups. "Otherwise the abolition of tuition fees for all students will have regressive effects, favouring many higher income households directly," he said.
Ivan Yates, then minister for agriculture, expressed fears that the costs of the abolition of fees would be substantially in excess of what was indicated in Ms Bhreathnach's memo to cabinet. The overall effect of the proposal, he warned, could be regressive, involving a transfer of income from lower to higher socio-economic sectors in society.
The abolition of fees was funded by the withdrawal of tax relief on covenants, but details have been disclosed of a Finance Ministry aide-memoire that said there would be losers as a result of the withdrawal of such relief. They included postgraduates and those studying abroad.
In addition to the fees issue, there are details of the behind-the-scenes discussions over a universities' bill, which was seen as a threat to universities and which threatened a government defeat in the upper house of parliament.
The details include a confidential memorandum from the education minister to Taoiseach John Bruton that insisted that the country's oldest university, Trinity College Dublin, had to be included in any legislative change despite its strong opposition. The opposition was not confined to Trinity as some of the other university institutions obtained legal advice over the minister's proposals, most of which is also revealed.
Changes were made to the original proposals, resulting in the passing of the Universities' Act in 1997.
John Walshe's book, A New Partnership in Education: From Consultation to Legislation in the 1990s, is published by the Institute of Public Administration, e21.57 (Pounds 14.53).