Nobody doubts his political courage. It is Noel Dempsey's judgment thatseems off balance. Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, reports on a week that has landed the stubbornly idealistic Minister for Educationand Science in hot water again
Idealistic, determined and frequently bordering on the mulish, Noel Dempsey, the Minister for Education and Science, is one of the most unusual politicians in public life. But standing out in the crowd can be dangerous. For more than 10 days he has provoked exasperation among colleagues in Fianna Fáil's parliamentary party who are troubled by his plans to reintroduce college fees for some of the country's tens of thousands of third-level students.
"Noel might not care about whether or not he is popular, but the rest of us do. It is an off-the-wall idea. And it isn't his first," one Minister of State says wearily to The Irish Times. But such exasperation at Dempsey's judgment is mixed with a weird form of respect for his courage, particularly after his speech to the Seanad late on Wednesday night.
Its high-vaulted chamber has rarely heard the like of it. For 20 minutes Dempsey rounded on his enemies, both inside and outside Fianna Fáil, especially Senator Mary O'Rourke, a former education minister. Seemingly intent on shutting doors rather than leaving them ajar, the Minister questioned the sense of justice - and even moral standing - of those who query his desire for reform.
After an extraordinary week, the Meath man has backed himself into an extremely dangerous corner in his quest to get the better-off to pay the cost of sending their children to college. For days, the Taoiseach has publicly tried both to offer cover to his embattled Minister and to raise the income threshold at which fees would be payable so high that their reintroduction would affect none but the very rich. But Bertie Ahern has been giving different signals in private.
In difficult times, the Taoiseach has a habit of turning up at the members' bar in Leinster House after the order of business to feel the political wind. Looking towards a coffee-sipping Dempsey on Wednesday morning, Ahern reportedly muttered: "He has got us into a lot of trouble this time. I don't know how we will get out of it."
And the Taoiseach is only too aware that the crisis has provoked more complaints from backbenchers that he is failing to offer leadership as the Government is buffeted by choppy political waters. For the past 48 hours senior Government figures have been scurrying around, trying to avoid a damaging clash both within Fianna Fáil and between it and the Progressive Democrats.
Signs of progress are emerging, but any solution must increase the number of disadvantaged students entering third-level institutions, save the Minister's reputation and avoid a rift with the Progressive Democrats. Oh, and not cost the Exchequer a fortune. The Minister's request for the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development to review Ireland's third-level education cannot salvage the situation on its own.
Privately blaming the Progressive Democrats for this week's leak about the OECD, Dempsey was furious that it was portrayed as the first signal that he is preparing to back off. He has little time, however. "This cannot be left on the table. It cannot be parked until after the summer. It has to be solved. And there are no two ways about it. End of story," says one informed source.
A former minister declares: "The principle is grand. But the Department of Finance would only be interested in this if it impacted on the middle ground. Because that is where the money is."
It could have been so different. Many of Dempsey's colleagues accept that he has a point in principle. Many accept that the abolition of college fees in 1995 did nothing to give the poor a better chance of higher education. Everyone accepts that the rich should pay.
But the issue has grown legs. The Minister's decision to preview his plan so early has created fears that the change could affect the middle class, not just the rich.
Unlike health cuts, for example, the issue strikes a chord with backbenchers. "Look, I had two kids in college last year. I have a good salary. And I found it bloody hard," says one TD.
Reintroducing charges would create new inequalities or bring old ones back to life. That is only too well illustrated by the maintenance-grants system operated by vocational educational committees. One former Government adviser says: "The farmers and the self-employed have always used this to their advantage. I remember that we had one mother on to us complaining. When we looked at it we found that the father was a vet in Dublin with a declared income of under £18,000 \. The self-employed will manipulate their income to maximise their gains."
A source close to the Taoiseach comments: "It won't raise significant finance if it is confined just to high earners. And it is causing all this suffering. It's not worth it."
Colleges are privately opposed, even though they were also against the abolition of fees by Niamh Breathnach, Labour's education minister, in 1995. "Fees were not paid by poor families back then. And they wouldn't be now. You have to catch kids in poor areas while they are still in primary school if you are going to get them into third level. You have to persuade both them and their families that there is a value in education, that it is better to study rather than get a job and have cash in their pockets now," says one academic.
In some ways, though, the most surprising element of the affair is that it has taken until now to explode in the Government's lap, regardless of the Progressive Democrats' complaints that they were never consulted. Because whatever else he might be guilty of, Dempsey did not try to hide his intentions.
Last August, the Minister told the Sunday Tribune that he had launched a review of the fees system, although he clearly then had doubts about whether the idea would survive middle-class outrage. "If it is not being most effectively spent and if it's not helping those who are at a disadvantage from an economic point of view in getting into third level, then we will obviously have to change it," he said.
The next month he went further. "I have to ask if people on my salary - and people who are on even higher salaries - should be getting the benefit of this." Weeks later, the first sign emerged that the public was reacting negatively to his plan: 61 per cent of people told opinion pollsters that they were against it. The middle class was even more negative.
By March, when he addressed the Union of Students in Ireland in Co Kerry, the Minister questioned the use of millions of taxpayers' euro to benefit the children of the rich. "All the evidence tells us that those at the other end of the economic spectrum continue to be excluded from third-level education by virtue of, amongst other things, inadequate supports," he declared.
A month ago he went even further. The abolition of fees in 1995 had "failed miserably" to bring more of the disadvantaged inside the gates of colleges and universities, he said. The "myth" of free third-level education had done nothing for the poor and had made universities and other institutions "hugely dependent" on the State, to the point that it could devastate them. "If we perpetuate that myth much longer, the cost into the future will be devastating," Dempsey told a biased audience at the Historical Society of Trinity College in Dublin.
But Dempsey's review, which was due first by Christmas and then by Easter, kept encountering delays. And the clock ticked ever closer to the Leaving Certificate exams, which begin next month. Distracted by Northern Ireland, the mounting crisis in the health service and other events, the Taoiseach and others ignored, or failed to spot, the gathering storm.
If anything, the crisis exposes the gap left by the decision of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats in 1995 to get rid of programme managers. A Labour Party idea in 1992, the programme managers were a cadre of political appointees - with the rank to intimidate civil servants - who could act as early-warning system.
Ten days ago, the fees issue finally erupted into the open after the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party heard of the Minister's plan to change the rules by September. "For some of the people we are talking about it will just mean that they will not be able to afford their second or third holiday. It isn't the case that they are going to be on the poverty line if they are charged," he later told The Irish Times.
The Progressive Democrats were getting more and more rattled. The junior Coalition partners had ruled out the return of fees at their conference last month. Indeed, the party had put up college posters during last year's general-election campaign guaranteeing that it would not happen were they returned to power.
The decision of Michael McDowell, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, to castigate Dempsey on RTÉ's Questions & Answers last Monday not only heightened tempers but also changed the dynamics of the situation. "Many of the Fianna Fáil lads were bulling over that, particularly when the PDs were getting the credit for opposing something that they too were against," says one Fianna Fáil TD.
The mood darkened, especially when they learned that three independent TDs, Jackie Healy-Rae, Niall Blaney and Mildred Fox, are still getting preferential treatment from the Government, which briefs them each week even though they have no clout.
"It shows that Bertie is keeping the door open - an each-way bet for the day when [Fianna Fáil\] doesn't need the PDs," says one TD.
The conspiracy theorists were quickly at work. The fees issue was orchestrated. Dempsey was working to Ahern's agenda. He wanted the PDs to quit on a issue where they could be seen as protecting the rich. Wrong, wrong and wrong again.
Faced with difficult times, Ahern prefers to ally his party with Mary Harney, the Tánaiste, and her team rather than depend on local political weathervanes such as Paddy McHugh, the independent Galway East TD.
On the other hand, the theorists argue that Dempsey is getting ready to head for the back benches to form a rump that will one day depose Ahern.
He has experience in palace coups. In September 1991, he was one of four Fianna Fáil TDs to call for Charles Haughey to step down. Albert Reynolds rewarded him for his pains when he took over as Taoiseach.
But times have moved on. Back then Dempsey was seen as one of the bright young things. Today he is regarded by backbenchers as a man who too often gets them in trouble.
Despite repeated warnings, and given how dependent the last government was on independent TDs who were also councillors, as minister for the environment and local government Dempsey tied his colours long past the point of sense to getting rid of the dual mandate, which would have banned TDs and Senators from sitting on local authorities.
Also, builders hated his ruling that one in five homes on new estates should be social housing. Potential buyers hated it even more. "He was warned and warned. But he bloody well wouldn't listen," says one ministerial colleague.
In grumpy humour, the Minister will spend this weekend at home in Trim, Co Meath, trying to extricate himself from a self-created mess, unsure of his ground and unsure of his colleagues.
Politicians have for hundreds of years been turning to The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli's great work, for advice. "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things," the canny Florentine wrote in the early 1500s. "Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."
The book should perhaps become Dempsey's bedtime reading. Bravery is admirable, but mixed with rashness it has the potential to destroy all in its wake.