The Department of Finance made it clear in internal discussions that the reintroduction of college fees would enable the Government to avoid the need to discuss cancelling fees for part-time students, it has emerged.
While records released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the Department pushed strongly for the return of fees this year, the Department also noted in several files that such a move "would obviate the need to consider the abolition of fees for part-time students, as recommended by the Taskforce on Lifelong Learning".
Unlike full-time students, part-time students have no automatic entitlement to free student fees.
In a report agreed in July last year, the taskforce said the extension of the free fees scheme for part-time students would cost €32.95 million a year.
With the reintroduction of fees under active consideration earlier this year, there has been no move to extend the free fees scheme to part-time students.
Records from the Budget estimates campaign a year ago cast new light on the debate within Government which ultimately led to a climbdown on the reintroduction of fees by the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, in May, within 10 days of the Leaving Cert exams.
They show that the Department of Finance envisaged additional increases in 2004 and 2005 after the initial reintroduction of of a small fee in 2003.
While Mr Dempsey rebuffed efforts to have the fees proposal included in the Budget estimate this year, his efforts to levy fees on wealthy students continued until an emergency Government meeting in May, when the option was ruled out.
Under pressure from the PDs, who were strongly opposed to the plan, Mr Dempsey only abandoned the plan after he secured a €42 million package to increase access to third-level education.
While Mr Dempsey presented his fees initiative in the context of the debate around access, records make it clear that the Department of Finance saw the reintroduction of fees as a means of raising extra revenue as pressure on the public finances intensified.
According to one document, the initial estimates submitted by the Department of Education exceed the Government's pre-Budget target by over €1 billion.
Shortly after Mr Dempsey signalled last year that he wanted wealthy parents to pay fees, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, said he had opposed their abolition in the mid-1990s.
Records show that officials in Mr McCreevy's Department considered "the reintroduction, in whole or in part, of tuition fees for third-level courses" as early as last August.
"Preliminary advice from the Office of the Attorney General indicates that the most prudent approach to raising income from this source would be to reintroduce a small tuition fee charge for all students and raise a composite charge to include student registration charges," one internal briefing note said.
Prepared for the Education estimates group, it added: "Further increases in the tuition fee charge could be considered for 2004 and 2005." Projections for such increases were not released.
The files show that the Government's estimates for the additional revenue realisable from a total charge to students of up to €1,200 were in the €15-€20 million range. They were prepared after the Government increased the annual student registration fee - for administration, exams and student services - by 70 per cent to €670 from €396.
While this prompted sharp protests from student groups and criticism from the Opposition, the Estimates Review Committee or "three wise men" group called for a further increase to €1,000.