GAY BYRNE has one `but' Pat Kenny doesn't. Maureen Potter has received the call, but Brendan O'Carroll probably never will. Mary Robinson has a collection of 15, and Albert Reynolds has at least seven. Even Nicholas Parsons has one.

Welcome to the world of the honorary degree an unpredictable one, as Margaret Thatcher will testify. She was controversially snubbed by Oxford 11 years ago when at the height of her power, but is shortly to emerge from retirement to receive her first honour from a British university, Brunel.

Honorary degrees were started by academics as a way of recognising achievement by their peers, but the award system now cuts a merry swathe through the worlds of high finance and celebrities.

The number of awards made is increasingly annually, as colleges become more generous and the number of institutions multiplies. Last year, the National University of Ireland awarded a record 19 honorary degrees, partly to celebrate the anniversaries of four of its colleges.

But at least things are more sober here in Ireland than in Britain, where recent recipients include Joanna Lumley, Kate Adie, Bob Geldof, Phil in The Archers (Norman Painting), and Parsons, last seen in fishnet stockings and stilettos during a London run of the The Rocky Horror Show.

The University of Leeds told Mark Knopfler last year he was being made a doctor of music because his contribution to rock, folk and blues idioms has brought "lasting enjoyment to people worldwide".

In Ireland, the ranks of those chosen are generally drawn from the wise and the good, but the famous and the wealthy are beginning to feature more and more. Aside from the awards for Byrne and Potter, the best example is probably UL's honorary doctorate for Jack Charlton a few years ago.

But what makes the subject so interesting in Ireland is that honorary doctorates are virtually all that we have to give to people of distinction. This country differs from just about every other country in Europe and beyond in not having a national awards system. With no knight hoods or Legion d'Honneur medals to distribute, honorary degrees are arguably the highest form of recognition that a citizen can receive in our society.

But are they given to those who most deserve them? Given that the universities are generally unrepresentative of wider society, are they capable of reflecting that society's notions about who is worthy of recognition? Should they even try?

The uneasy relationship between the State and the colleges over the matter was evident during the visit to Ireland of Ronald Reagan in 1984. While it is usual for the Government to ask the universities to confer an honour on a visiting head of state, in this case the initiative came from the NUI, which asked the then Taoiseach, Garret FitzGerald, to propose the controversial us president for an honorary degree.

FitzGerald reluctantly agreed, feeling that it would be highly damaging if it were discovered that he had refused the request. However, to, his intense annoyance, he was later to shoulder most of the blame as an unsuccessful bid was launched on, the campuses to stop the awarding ahead.

SINCE THEN, the State has dabbled less in the selection process for awards. These days, most recipients come from one of four groups the academic community business public life or the intersecting circles of the arts, media and celebrity.

Few would quibble with the right of university professors to reward achievement among their peers, though it could be asked whether a highly qualified academic is in need of yet another degree, this time earned without any effort.

The awards to people in other fields reflect the complex relationship of the university with society.

Many of the recipients are graduates yet they also work with the colleges as administrators, politicians and benefactors.

Thus, the NUI's list of honorary degrees for 1995 includes four professors, two archbishops, Albert Reynolds, several leading industrialists and the President's husband, Nick Robinson.

Although the list is balanced in many aspects for example, it includes several Northerners, a Frenchman and a Canadian the 19 names include only one woman and two people who left school before third level.

With universities increasingly strapped for cash, it comes as no surprise that their links with business are growing continually. This developing relationship is reflected in the presence of business people (usually men) in the awards lists, but the colleges say this is a tribute to their public service rather than a "thank you" for monies given.

"We generally go, for a reasonable balance of pure academia and successful business people, but we haven't given honorary degrees simply because someone is a benefactor of the college, or might become one," says Michael Gleeson, secretary of Trinity College.

"People tend to associate generous donors with awards, but the colleges are determined to avoid this suggestion," according to Dominic McNamara of Maynooth College.

LAST YEAR'S NUI list included Tony Barry, chief executive of CRH, described as "the most senior Irish industrialist resident in the country", as well as the managing director of Waterford Foods, Stephen O'Connor.

It also included Craig Dobbin, chairman of a Canadian helicopter operation, whose secured an Irish passport after end owing a chair of Canadian studies in UCD, though this act of philanthropy was not mentioned in the biographical press release announcing the award.

This year's NUI list includes a leading car salesman and the chairman and chief executive of Merrill Lynch.

The recognition given by universities to people in public service compensates for the lack of a national awards system. All our former Taoiseach have received honorary degrees from at least one institution, as have a wide variety of public servants and other administrators.

Some of them would need a special room to store the various scrolls and mortar boards. For example, the President has received a doctor of laws degrees from Irish, British, French, Australian, American, Polish and Canadian universities.

Oxford went one better than the other colleges by awarding Mrs Robinson a Doctor of Laws by Diploma apparently, a higher award only given to royalty and visiting heads of state.

Perhaps, the President can count herself lucky, as the same university took it upon itself to refuse degrees, to Margaret Thatcher, as noted above, and Jacques Derrida.

According to the President's special advisor, Bride Rosney, the 15 degrees Mrs Robinson has accepted represent only 30 per cent of what has been offered to her. "Most State visits would include a ceremony in a national university," she explains.

Mrs Robinson, who didn't have a doctorate of her own before becoming President, doesn't use the title. This is common practice among academics, most of them already laden with awards.

Among those not for the manor born, however, there is a greater tendency to insist on the use of the doctor title. The use of the title is "common but not universal", according to Garret FitzGerald, who has nine honorary doctorates in addition to his own "real" one. "Some people consider it pretentious, but others are quite keen on using the title as much as possible."

It should be noted that Dr AJ F O'Reilly differs from our other millionaires in having his own doctorate, obtained for a thesis on the marketing of Kerrygold butter.