Ireland's presidency of the European Union achieved unintended levels of openness yesterday when journalists attending a press conference in Brussels were given copies of the Department of Finance's private instructions to the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey.
In a note drawn up to help Mr Dempsey chair a meeting of EU education ministers, he was warned not to make any encouraging noises about the European Commission's ambitions for future spending.
During the meeting, the Commissioner for Education and Culture, Ms Viviane Reding, was to outline the education aspects of the European Commission proposals for EU spending in the next budget cycle, 2007-2013, which were published earlier this month.
The financial perspectives are already the subject of fierce debate, with six of the EU states calling for spending to be limited to l per cent of Gross National Income, significantly below the Commission's proposal of 1.14 per cent of GNI or €900 billion over the seven-year cycle.
Government officials explained in the note that Ms Reding would be arguing that the European Commission's education programmes were "pure added value"; that the president of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, believed that education and training budgets should increase by about 300 per cent; and that such an increase was necessary if the EU was to become a dynamic and competitive economy.
The top few pages of the note were uncontroversial. It was the later pages, "based on information supplied by the Department of Finance", which were not meant for the journalists.
They were mistakenly distributed by staff from the secretariat of the EU's Council of Ministers.
Mr Dempsey was warned to leave well alone. The financial perspectives were to be left to the heads of state and government at European councils and for the foreign ministers at the General Affairs Council.
"The advice from the Department of Finance is that the Minister should simply note what the Commissioner says and move to the next point," the note says.
"The Department of Finance advises that the key point as far as the Education Council is concerned is to avoid appearing to give Commissioner Reding any grounds for saying afterwards that council gave a favourable signal in relation to her proposals."
Lest Mr Dempsey should be in any doubt as to why he must avoid comment, the note spelt out the danger: "The general line that the Commission is taking is that the European Council is duty-bound to provide the funding for policies approved by council - the money should flow as a technical consequence of political choices.
"That is why it is important not to give signals that could be used subsequently by the Commission to complicate discussions in the General Affairs Council or at Heads of State level."
At the press conference, Mr Dempsey refused to be drawn on whether he approved or disapproved of the Commission's education plans.
Afterwards Irish officials confirmed that circulation of the document had been "a mistake". "But it could have been a lot worse," one said.