Twenty-five years ago a small group from the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist Leninist) used to participate in student marches against fee rises, writes Mark Brennock.
They specialised in encouraging the marchers to chant long slogans, one of which was: "Make the rich pay for the education system".
In the Seanad this week, you could almost have mistaken Noel Dempsey for one of them. Free education for the rich should not be paid for out of the money available to provide supports for all students, he said. "What about people on low incomes who pay tax and pay for the wealthy to get into colleges for free? Where is the social equity in that?" he asked.
It was difficult to know your left from your right in Leinster House this week. It was Labour, according to Mr Dempsey, which was defending "the right of the most affluent sections of society to receive everything for free".
Indeed he mourned the fact that "the party of Connolly, led by a former member of a far-left, Moscow-supported party" was taking this position. Although if he thinks Pat Rabbitte was ever on the far left he should have met the crowd from the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist Leninist).
To add to the ideological confusion we had the Progressive Democrats - normally full of rolling back the State and cutting taxes - announcing that the State has a duty to provide free third-level education to the middle classes funded out of the tax system.
Liz O'Donnell confirmed that the PDs were indeed making an ideological point about State provision. "I believe that third-level education is now an essential component of a child's and a student's life, in the same way as second level was seen to be in the 1960s when fees were taken away from second level."
Or as PD Senator Kate Walsh said: "Education is the key to our future opportunities as a society and as individuals. For that reason, we support free primary education, free secondary education and free third-level education."
In other words, while the PDs believe in getting the State out of all manner of social and economic activities, education at all levels should be funded by the taxation system.
The party supports and has implemented in Government the expansion of the user-pays principle in matters as basic as visits to hospital casualty departments and prescriptions for essential drugs. But there will be no charges on third-level students and their parents, no matter what their wealth.
"The way you collect taxes from the rich is through the general taxation system", Ms Harney said in Brussels early in the week. However, her party colleague Senator Kate Walsh made it clear that this was not a proposal to tax the rich more. Through the tax system, the wealthy already made their contribution to tackling disadvantage, she said.
Which gives a clue as to whom Noel Dempsey may have been referring to when he said shortly after Ms Walsh's speech: "Those who advocate more money for third level while at the same time advocating lower taxes are being disingenuous at the very least."
The apparent ideological contortions are caused by one factor: the middle classes. The abolition of free fees benefited them more than anyone else. Those on low incomes always received grants - however inadequate - and didn't pay fees. It is the middle classes who have felt the difference.
These people are not all rich. A schoolteacher, for example, with two or three children in third-level education would face severe financial hardship if he or she had to pay fees. Such people, and those better off than them, were deeply grateful when fees were abolished and are now alarmed at the prospect that they could have to pay them again.
And the thing about the middle classes is that a very high proportion of them vote, and a very high proportion of them change their support from party to party depending on their mood at the time. Political parties don't mess with the middle classes.
Last week's Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll showed that support for the PDs was twice as high among the better off ABC1 social group as the less well off C2DE group. Labour, too, had higher support among the better off than lower earners.
Both parties wish to consolidate their position among the middle classes. In the course of a short radio interview last Wednesday Liz O' Donnell managed to mention three times that what the PDs opposed was third-level fees "for the middle classes".
Labour has always insisted its abolition of fees was designed to bring greater equality of access to third level in the long term. However, it was very happy to accept the thanks of the middle classes in the shorter term, and Pat Rabbitte told his conference a fortnight ago that they must seek to win greater support from those who see themselves as middle-class.
Noel Dempsey clearly believes that defenders of free fees dress themselves up as egalitarians but are, in reality, merely special pleaders on behalf of the middle classes.
The roots of educational disadvantage begin in very early childhood. Tackling these causes would involve massive public investment from pre-school level on to transform the aspirations of and opportunities for children from poor backgrounds.
However, the Tánaiste received an award this week from a conservative anti-tax group, the Taxpayers' Association of Europe, for her efforts to cut taxes over the years. An adequate programme of investment to end disadvantage would need to be of such a scale that this association would come looking for its award back.
Third level is set to remain the property of the middle classes.