The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, said it was "ironic" that 49 students, mainly from disadvantaged parts of Limerick, were refused places to post-primary schools in the city when there were 15 schools and enough capacity overall in the district.
Mr Dempsey said he was against "educational apartheid" in any part of the State and he hoped that a system could be put in place "in which everybody will shoulder responsibility and every child will have an equal chance in education in Limerick city and throughout the country".
The secretary general of the Department of Education was dealing with 21 appeals by parents of students who were refused enrolment and the city's VEC was dealing with 13. About 20 parents had not appealed so far against the decision by schools not to enrol their children.
Mr Dempsey said the Department was in the process of informing the parents and schools about the results of the appeals.
If appeals are upheld, the schools will be obliged to enrol the students and where the appeal is refused, the Department will assist parents to find a school for their children.
Pointing out that there were 9,000 students enrolled in post-primary schools in Limerick in 1994 and this was down to 7,747 in 2003, Mr Dempsey expressed his deep concern about the situation in Limerick.
He told Labour's education spokeswoman, Ms Jan O'Sullivan, that once the appeals process was completed he would meet teachers, parents and community groups from schools in Limerick to prevent the students from disadvantaged areas being refused places in future to post-primary schools in the city.
Ms O'Sullivan expressed her concern that "educational apartheid is practised in all cities, whereby children from certain backgrounds go to certain schools and children from less well off backgrounds tend to be excluded from those schools in one way or another.
"These schools are operating against the spirit of the Education Act if not the provisions of the Act."
She said that schools could hide behind their enrolment policies to exclude certain children.
