Keeping the gates open: Keep free fees.

The labour party's Jan O Sullivan has excellently summarised the arguments for free fees in her paper Keeping the gates open. Free fees form a congruent part of a social-democratic vision of education which I happen to also share:
She argues "Education is so fundamental to personal development and the fulfilment of individual potential, that it is seen by social democrats as an integral part of the social democratic concept of social citizenship." In detail, she knocks on the head many of the myths proposed by those who support the return of fees.
She concludes: "When fees for third level education were abolished, it was the first step in forcing open the gates of many institutions – institutions whose gates had up to then been effectively closed to people below a certain level of income. Ireland’s future, as an inclusive society and dynamic economy, depends on those gates being kept open."