The country’s judges were engaged in a long-running dispute with successive governments in the early 1980s over their pay and expenses.

Ian Paisley was described as a schizophrenic ready to adopt the IRA’s “Brits out” mantra if he did not get his way on Northern Ireland politics, state papers claim.

At the beginning of 1983, Irish ambassador Tadgh O’Sullivan believed it was going to be a decisive year for US President Ronald Reagan whose competency was being severely questioned both on the ideological and economic fronts.

Irish Shipping, the State-owned shipping group, entered into financially disastrous charter deals without the approval of the government, cabinet papers from 1983 reveal.

The fate of the Verolme Cork Dockyard was sealed more than a year before its closure in 1984 when the government accepted a report by a consultant that it was not commercially viable.

The Department of the Taoiseach opposed the Law Reform Commission’s recommendation to abolish the concept of illegitimacy and allow the automatic granting of parental and guardianship rights to the children of unmarried parents.

A state banquet for Zimbabwean prime minister Robert Mugabe was less than stately after Garret FitzGerald took too long to handpick the wine and 30 unaccounted-for guests turned up.

Diplomats fretted about allowing Iran to open an embassy in Dublin because of its backing for the IRA as well as Fianna Fáil links with high-profile personalities in Iraq, State files have revealed.

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told then Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald it would be possible to change Irish people’s “irrational” insistence on neutrality, newly declassified files reveal.

Charles Haughey’s government resisted attempts to bring in an EU-wide ban on the death penalty over fears that the Troubles could spiral out of control.

Politicians shot down plans to honour Nelson Mandela with the Freedom of Dublin just five years before he was eventually awarded the accolade, classified files have revealed.

The government, led by Garret FitzGerald, was seriously concerned about the high cost of running the government jet within months of taking office in 1983.

The government was forced to review the adequacy of the annual entertainment bill for the presidency after a row broke out over who paid for the food bill at Áras an Uachtaráin.

Cork Harbour Commissioners (CHC) regarded the State’s only oil refinery at Whitegate as “a milking cow”, a confidential document from 1983 reveals.

Serious consideration was given to a controversial scheme to exclude people in arrears with payments of taxes, statutory contributions and other levies from all types of public services including social welfare payments.

Major efforts were made by the State to avert the closure of the Irish Steel plant at Haulbowline, Co Cork, during 1983.

The coalition of Fine Gael and Labour became increasingly concerned during its first year in office about its poor record on communicating government policy to the public.

There were disagreements between ministers over the size of a proposed increase in electricity prices in May 1983.

The Irish public has been left hanging when it comes to getting a full explanation about who knew what and when in the phone-tapping scandal of the 1980s, writes Ryle Dwyer.

FitzGerald agreed a constitutional change was needed to protect against abortion but failed to have it framed correctly, writes Ryle Dwyer.