Sharp divisions in the Coalition over third-level education appear increasingly likely after PD sources said the party had reservations about the introduction of fees for students in wealthy families, writes Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter
After the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, suggested on Wednesday that fees would be levied on high-earning families, the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said a day later that the party's policy was against changing the regime.
Ms Harney confirmed the policy after it emerged that the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, had told the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party that he would be going to Government with a proposal on fees in three weeks.
A PD spokesman would not comment when asked whether there were now clear divisions in the Government. He said it would be inappropriate to discuss the supposed findings of Mr Dempsey's review of the system. "The Minister is due to bring the findings of his review to Cabinet very shortly. We'll have to wait and see until such time as those findings are made known."
However, other sources said recent arguments against the reintroduction of fees for any students by the Longford TD, Ms Mae Sexton, had full support in the PD Parliamentary Party. The speech was sanctioned by the party, they added.
In an address last month to the PD conference, Ms Sexton said: "Some people say the Government should require only the well-off to pay fees. That sounds reasonable in principle.
"In practice, however, thresholds for payments and taxes have a habit of moving down. More and more people end up paying fees or taxes or charges with these thresholds."
Divisions would emerge if Ms Harney stuck to that policy within the Government. While she supported opening education to less privileged students, she said on Thursday that there was no commitment in the Programme for Government to levy fees on rich families.
In her speech last month, Ms Sexton said many thousands of students and families had made financial and educational plans on the basis of free third-level fees.
She said: "It would not be right to undermine their plans, their dreams and their hopes by making third-level education unaffordable for them.
"It's not just existing students who would be affected by a reintroduction of fees. It's second-level students and their families who have hopes and plans for third-level education."
Labour's education spokeswoman, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, said yesterday that the promise to use the money raised from fees for the benefit of educationally disadvantaged groups was "totally disingenuous" because budgets for such programmes had been already been cut by millions of euro.