Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 268: To ask the Minister for Education and Science his views on whether it is value for money to cut funding to the programme for the Centre for Talented Youth in Ireland; if the savings to be made justify the removal of this programme which targets the best and brightest students; if this cut ties in with stated policy to support and promote mathematics and science amongst students; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37742/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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Notwithstanding the increase of €302 million in the Education budget for 2009, which is a real achievement in the current economic climate, a number of tough and difficult decisions had to be taken. These decisions included the decision to discontinue the annual funding of €97,000 that the Department made available to the Centre for Talented Youth (CTYI) at Dublin City University.

While it is appreciated that the discontinuation of this funding will impact on the Centre, given the current volatile and challenging economic climate, difficult choices had to be made in order to contain public sector spending. Tax revenues are down significantly and Government expenditure has to reflect this reality. The priority of this budget was to focus on measures to channel as much as was possible of the available resources to the direct funding of our schools.