There's nothing like the whiff of elected office to get student politicians' blood up. In campuses around Ireland, minor spats are escalated into full-blown warfare as grudges turn to out and out rivalry.

In Trinity, Ogra Fianna Fail college chairman Averil Power survived and thrived in her battle to become education officer, in spite of anonymous, unsupported allegations against her that bombarded the offices of Trinity News. Power was vindicated both by the Central Societies' Committee and, she says, by the 54 per cent vote she got. "That's about as strong an answer as you can get," she said.

There is a larger degree of mystery surrounding events in UCC last month. The University Examiner reports that during a college engineering society trip to Galway, 19 students were persuaded to go on a bus trip to Dublin, during which most of them were paid £40 in expenses. The main attraction of the trip was a visit to the Young Fine Gael conference, where they were asked to support YFG candidates from UCC. The trip's organiser and paymaster was one Dan O'Regan, a candidate in the UCC presidential elections last week.

The Fine Gael party apparatus in UCC is particularly strong and O'Regan seems to have felt that if he supported UCC YFG there would be a return for him. Although he denied that anyone from the party knew he was going, he also told the Examiner that "having support at this time of year would be handy for myself maybe in a few weeks".

O'Regan said the £40 payment to some of the students was necessary to cover their meal expenses. The conference was held at the Regency Hotel and apparently "the only place that there was to eat was a rather expensive place. It was a restaurant adjoined to the hotel. As opposed to me going around getting all their orders for eating, I felt it easier to put the money into their hands myself."

UCC YFG had three candidates running for positions on Young Fine Gael's national body, and an official statement from the UCC branch thanked all those who had travelled to support the three. "In particular", it thanked "Dan O'Regan, auditor of the Engineering Society, who arranged for some members of that society to take a detour from a trip that they were on, to support YFG UCC in Dublin". However, the statement continues: "Neither the organisation or financing of this particular group was arranged or known by YFG UCC."

There was no obvious reason for the trip, other than to provide vocal support for the UCC contingent, because only members of YFG were eligible to vote in Dublin.

Joanne Harmon, the party's youth officer, explained that people could vote without identification but that they had to have membership cards and be vouched for by the relevant branch chairman or secretary. These people were also the people in charge of the distribution of the membership cards at the conference.

Harmon said that while she was unaware of any particular dispute this year, voting procedures were "always a problem".