THE GOVERNMENT'S decision to cut its entire €97,000 annual grant to the Irish Centre for Talented Youth (CTYI) in last week's controversial Budget came completely without warning, its director, Colm O'Reilly, has said. The grant comprised about 10 per cent of the organisation's own budget.
The centre, which was featured in the Parentingsection of this supplement last week, runs classes and camps around the State for 4,000 exceptionally able children, aged six to 16.
Mr O'Reilly said the centre was "surprised and disappointed" at the abolition of the grant, which makes up 10 per cent of its €1 million budget. The first he knew about the decision was when a colleague pointed it out on the Department of Education's website last Wednesday, the day after the Budget.
While the rest of the centre's income is self-generated, the Government funding has been used for assisting parents of gifted children who could not afford the classes and for providing extra support to students with learning disabilities.
A significant number of the estimated 23,000 exceptionally able children in the Republic have learning difficulties or disabilities. Many of the children with learning disabilities who attend CTYI courses are referred by the National Educational Psychological Service, which is funded by the Department of Education, Mr O'Reilly said.
"They are students who most benefit from coming on our programmes because they can excel at something," he says. "It places us with the dilemma of what to do with these students. They would be the most vulnerable of gifted students."
A Department of Education and Science spokesman said: "The resources available for next year meant that difficult choices had to be made and the abolition of the grant to the Centre for Talented Youth was one of those tough decisions."
Operating in a number of centres around the State, as well as in DCU, the centre has doubled its number of students in the past five years. The previous education minister, Mary Hanafin, had visited CTYI three times and had been very supportive, Mr O'Reilly said.
