The Meath county councillor who terrified dishonest student-grant claimants remains unbowed by news that his "naming names" is illegal.

Councillor Jimmy Fegan (Fianna Fail) introduced a motion to the council to make publicly available the names of those who had made successful grant applications. The motion was passed unanimously.

The council dispenses £1.4 million in grants each year but "there is a finite amount of resources and those who are deserving should benefit," says Fegan. If a person who feels unfairly treated has access to documentation, it allows for greater tranparency in the system and acts as a deterrent for those putting in spurious documents, he says.

USI president Philip Madden agrees there is a problem with dishonest claims, but doesn't approve of Fegan's methods. "In any system there will be people who abuse the system, but naming everybody with a grant isn't the way to go about it. If the councillors know there is a particular group of people abusing the system, we'll go after them," he says. In the short term, anyway, it seems that claimants' anonymity will be retained: the Department of Education points out that all information about them is subject to the Data Protection Act. Fegan, however, says he had received a lot of support for his campaign and is determined. "We'll have to find a different means to proceed along the same lines."