A review group to examine the record of the universities in providing access for all groups in society has been established by the Higher Education Authority.
The group will be chaired by Mr Maurice O'Connell, former governor of the Central Bank of Ireland. The new initiative means that the equality policies will for the first time be reviewed by the HEA.
Announcing the move, the chairman of the HEA, Dr Don Thornhill, told the Oireachtas Education Committee there were "clear social and economic rewards to be gained in widening access to and promoting equality in higher education".
He conceded that achieving equality in higher education had "many of the features of a long and difficult campaign".
"Structural change in education invariably takes a long time," he said. "Nevertheless these are not reasons as to why those of us engaged in higher education should moderate our efforts."
Recent research findings, Dr Thornhill added, showed Ireland performing second of nine EU countries in terms of improved socio-economic access to higher education, but much remained to be done.
The other members of the review group are Dr Maureen Gaffney, chairwoman of the National Economic and Social Forum; Mr Tony Crooks, chief executive of Area Development Management Ltd; Prof Ossi Lindqvist, director of the Institute of Applied Biotechnology, Kuopio, Finland, and Ms Laura Lundy of the law faculty at Queen's University Belfast.
The Minister for Education and Science, Mr Dempsey, recently announced the establishment of a national office for equity of access to higher education, which will allocate targeted funding to support access and will monitor and evaluate the outcomes of such funding.
The office will also have a key role in supporting the higher education institutions in their strategies to promote access and to co- operate with the other relevant to develop a national approach to improve access.