The Minister for Education and Science, Mr Dempsey, is to meet local representatives in the coming weeks to discuss an enrolment crisis in Limerick schools.
This follows the disclosure that 49 primary students from disadvantaged areas in the city are unable to find a place at second-level schools. Nearly all of these are boys.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education and Science said Mr Dempsey had agreed to meet the representatives to try to avoid a repeat of this situation in the future.
However, the Minister has stressed that the enrolment of pupils in second-level schools is the responsibility of management at individual schools.
The meetings, which follow a similar get-together last month, will take place once the outcome of the student appeals process is known.
There are currently 31 such appeals lodged with either the Department of Education and Science or Vocational Education Committees in Limerick.
The outcomes of these appeals are expected to be known in the coming weeks.
Those present at the meeting will include "all interested parties", including school managers, the National Education Welfare Board and some local elected representatives. It may also include parents' representatives.
In a recent written Dáil reply, Mr Dempsey said that responsibility for ensuring that a child progresses from primary to post-primary education rests, in the main, with a child's parents.
"My Department's main responsibility is to ensure that schools in an area can, between them, cater for all pupils seeking second level places in an area," Mr Dempsey said.
"This may result, however, in some pupils not obtaining a place in the school of their first choice."
Under section 29 of the Education Act, 1998, parents have a right to appeal any decision by a school to refuse to enrol a student.
Where this is upheld, the Department of Education may direct a school to enrol a pupil.
"I have no role, as Minister, regarding the operation of the section 29 procedures," Mr Dempsey said. "I cannot intervene in or exert any influence on an appeal which is in progress as this would be to act beyond my legal authority."
The Labour party spokeswoman on education, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, yesterday said it was vital that representatives from second-level schools in the area attend the meeting. This would allow them to be "pinned down" on their enrolment policies.
There was also a need for Mr Dempsey to publish tighter regulations regarding entry to second level, she said.
Mr John Carr, general secretary of the INTO, welcomed the move. However, problems with transfer to second level also affected other parts of the country, he added.
As a result, he believed a national working group comprising all the education partners should be convened to address the issue of pupil transfer.