Education minister Batt O’Keeffe has commissioned several reports looking at the impact of levying fees on students whose parents earn more than about 100,000 Euros a year.

However, by the time these are completed, have gone to cabinet and adequate warning has been given, it rules out the introduction of fees for next year’s entrants.

But for future years the prospect of a return of fees in some guise for those whose parents earn ¤100,000-plus is more of a reality. O’Keeffe says it is unfair that those who can afford to pay fees do not contribute to the cost of their education, while the universities argue that they need the extra cash to keep abreast of world standards.

O’Keeffe’s proposals have come at a time when many of Ireland’s universities are in financial turmoil. In the past two years, University College Cork has posted a deficit of ¤11m and NUI, Galway had a deficit of ¤7m in 2007. This year, University College Dublin has a running deficit of 14m Euros.

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While there is support for the return of fees for those who can afford them, Professor Ferdinand von Prondzynski, president of Dublin City University, has said the cash raised must be ploughed back into third-level education. “None of this will work or is even worth pursuing if the state is considering clawing back the fee income,” he says.

“A reasonable proportion of fees paid by those who can afford them should be reinvested in supports and scholarships for those who cannot.”

Fees for third-level education were abolished in 1995. Although university presidents across Ireland are appealing to the government for greater investment, they don’t believe a return to the old system of wider fees is the best option.

In a recent meeting with the education minister, the republic’s seven university presidents and Ned Costello, chief executive of the Irish Universities Association, recommended that reintroduced fees should be a top-up to supplement government support, and that all students should have the option of taking out a loan to cover the cost.

“University heads have carefully weighed up the pros and cons of the various approaches and believe that a replication of the previous fees regime would be wrong,” said Costello.

Others argue, however, that even a more limited regime of fees for the wealthiest is not worth the political risk for the estimated 35m Euros a year income fees would generate.

Shane Kelly, Union of Students in Ireland president, says: “The minister’s plans to bring back fees for the super-rich just won’t work.

“The return of fees would be bad for a number of reasons, the main reason is that this wouldn’t generate enough revenue to justify it.”

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