Education: The Government's attempts to reintroduce third-level fees is "a regressive move" which will hurt the chances of poor and middle-class students to improve their lives, the Labour Party has claimed.
The desire of the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, to offer loans to students would do nothing to fill the gap, the party's education spokeswoman, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, said.
Producing a major policy document, the Limerick East TD said Mr Dempsey had given "clear signals" that he wanted to replicate the loan system in Australia.
Although students from middle-class families could face loans with confidence, the poor seeking a second chance at third-level education would be frightened off.
She said once a loan system was created, students would have no idea of the size of their final bill because the Government could raise fees from year to year.
In addition, Australian students have been discouraged from taking more expensive science courses, while the system also makes students less mobile after qualification.
"The proposed reintroduction of third-level fees is a regressive move. It is rooted in a political philosophy hostile to the concepts of social citizenship, equality and fairness.
"It is a proposal nominally dressed up in concerns for disadvantage and inequality, while at the same time ignoring a vast array of alternative options for dealing with inequality," said Ms O'Sullivan.
Third-level education transformed education, improved the economy and enhanced its competitiveness. "It should not be begrudged," she wrote in her policy document, Keeping The Gates Open.
Speaking to the conference, the former minister for education, Ms Niamh Bhreatnach, who abolished third-level fees in 1996, said the Government should not be allowed to turn the clock back.
Children from richer families managed to get to third level without the Government's help because they were able to benefit from tax-efficient covenants.
Education at all levels is now more unequal than it was in 1997, when Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats came to power: "The number finishing second level has dropped since then," she said.
One delegate, Ms Orla Farrell, a teacher from Clontarf in Dublin, said she had "danced around the kitchen" with her children when she heard on the radio in 1996 that fees had been abolished. The decision gave her the opportunity "for the first time ever" to ask her pupils what they would like to do in college.