The warning by the Minister for Education that third-level fees may be reintroduced for those who can afford to pay them has brought a strong reaction from students, the main Opposition parties and the INTO.
The students union at Trinity College Dublin said it would "oppose any reintroduction of third-level tuition fees in the strongest manner".
The union said such a decision would have repercussions for students and their families at a time when other costs surrounding third-level education were increasing, at unsustainable levels for many. In an interview with The Irish Times published yesterday, Mr Dempsey said third-level fees may return "for those who can afford it".
TCD students' union president, Mr Will Priestley, said in response: "The prospect of a charge of between €4,000 and €5,000 being levied against the students of this country is just another example of the Minister rowing back on promises previously made, a symptom that is becoming prevalent in the opening months of this Government's tenure."
The Minister, he added, had "repeatedly denied" he would consider the reintroduction of tuition fees and had previously dismissed such an initiative as "silly season flights of fancy". The current proposal was an insult to the commitments made by Mr Dempsey in the past few months, he claimed.
The union's deputy president, Mr Gareth Makim, said the 5 per cent increase in the maintenance grant, "introduced at the time of the 69 per cent increase in the student services charge", had only led to a real increase of €3 a week.
This too was "a thin veil over a Government cutback". He insisted: "We expect a similar trick will be enacted in respect of tuition fees."
Fine Gael's spokeswoman on education, Ms Olwyn Enright, described the Minister's proposal as a "kite-flying exercise which has created another layer of uncertainty for third-level students and their families".
Mr Dempsey's apparent willingness to reintroduce third-level fees, she said, echoed last Friday's statement by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy. The Minister's commitment to students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds was highly questionable after last week's announced cutbacks in this area.
"The escalation of cost may deter many students from continuing their academic career."
The Labour Party's spokesman on education, Mr Joe Costello, also condemned Mr Dempsey for "continuing to threaten tens of thousands of students" with the reintroduction of third-level fees.
Such a move, he said, would be socially regressive and should not be used as another tool by the Government to solve the crisis in the public finances.
The right to education was fundamental, he said. "The abolition of third-level fees by my colleague, Niamh Bhreathnach, in 1995 was the most radical measure ever taken to open up third-level education to those previously without access to it."
It had enabled many thousands of lower and middle-income families to increase their employment opportunities. Mr Costello noted the Minister "first mooted this threat only days before students were about to receive their offers of college places.
"The Minister would be well advised to devote more time to reviewing and improving the third-level grants system, which is crying out for reform." This would be one of the best means of improving access to third-level education.
Recent media coverage of schools and university places meant little to "too many of our children" and their parents, said Mr John Carr, the INTO's general secretary. "These are the pupils who have been let down by the State, long before university education might even have been an option," he said.
He was referring to pupils who had dropped out.
In spite of the country's economic success, some children still lived in poverty, said Mr Carr.