The Department of Education has denied it is planning to almost double the annual service charge for third-level students from €670 to €1,300.
This is despite claims by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) that it had been informed of the plan by a senior Department of Education and Science official.
A spokesman for the Department told ireland.comthere was "nothing in the pipeline" and no plans to increase the charge.
He said the fee for the last academic year and the 2003/2004 academic year had been set at €670. The spokesman said the Department pays this charge for any student where the family income is under €40,000. "So it is not a disadvantage issue," he said.
"We pay the charge on behalf of people who qualify for grants or for any portion of a student support grant."
Labour's education spokeswoman, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, called on the Minister for Education to state whether the reports of a planned increase in the charge were true.
She said any planned increase was a symptom of a third-level sector being starved of resources and was, in effect, the re-introduction of third-level fees by the back door.
The USI said last week that it now costs each third-level student around €7,000 a year to go to college and that many have to take part-time jobs to support themselves.
The union claimed some students had been forced to go to money lenders to meet their living expenses and had found themselves in difficulty as a result.