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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— June – July 2013
news
Temple
Bar –
Dublin’s
crony
quarter
S
O what’s happening in Cultureland that
nobody in the arts wants to talk about?
What of Temple Bar Cultural Trust
(TBCT), Dublin Contemporary, the
City Arts Centre, the Hugh Lane, and IMMA?
And more. Why, oh why, are our poets so silent?
Our artistic community schtum? Fear stalks
Cultureland. Fear that the regimes of vested
interest – the self-serving organisations and
individuals who have dominated and ‘agency cap-
tured’ the arts sector for the best part of years
– are about to snap asunder because their dark
and sinister arts of cronyism and cartelism will
be exposed. Never had so few, with their huge sal-
aries and even bigger egos, had it so good. Take
your seats Ladies and Gentlemen, the show is
about to begin.
At the heart of this episode is Temple Bar, for
so long the big brother of Dublin’s arts, having
been run since the s by arts administra-
tors. Most famous was the first wave, ushered
in by Charlie Haughey and his gushing lieuten-
ant, Paddy Teahon. That was the Temple Bar
Properties of Laura Magahy and Patricia Quinn
(remember them?). Ultimately it was succeeded
– via a legacy of inflated land values, dispos-
sessed artists, and destructive pub expansions
– by the TBCT led by Dermot McLaughlin, who
was suspended after three members of staff were
offered redundancy packages worth more than
€, each, and who recently resigned from
his position at Derry City of Culture.
The many cultural organisations in Temple
Bar are predominantly funded by the State
through the Arts Council, the Department of
Arts, and Dublin City Council (DCC). TBCT is a
private company that manages a property port-
folio belonging to DCC. This property is in the
form of commercial units and what are known as
‘cultural use’ units. About €.m in rent is gener-
ated from these publicly-owned properties. The
cultural properties are all low rent or no rent,
paid for out of grants from the Arts Council. The
Dublin City Manager, TBCT’s sole shareholder, is
a somewhat absentee landlord, by and large.
A culture of insider trading and nepotism has
developed in state-funded arts organisations and
nowhere is this more pronounced than in the so-
called ‘arts cluster’ in Temple Bar. The inner circle
of ruling-class culture elites could systemati-
cally arrange cosy deals for their buddies, while
at the same time indulging substantial arrears
from tenants and getting paid fat fees them-
selves. The likes of The Theatre Institute, Temple
Bar Galleries, Smock Alley, and the revamping
of Meeting House Square availed of lucrative
arrangements and loans.
A recent audit report draws alarming atten-
tion to these arrangements.
On the other hand, hard-pressed and strug-
gling artists were disempowered and disregarded.
The whole culture of creative arts and culture was
hijacked, commandeered by ‘administration’
masquerading as creativity, or guardian of crea-
tivity. They had successfully rendered the means
of production unto their own pockets.
That DCC audit report, released in March,
into TBCT’s working practices -, makes
an extraordinary recommendations, while not
imputing any wrongdoing. Thirty are rated at the
highest rate of urgency for change. In the section
on Board Direction and Control it states: “The
Strategy/Business Plan was not approved by the
Board for /. Board minutes and Board
Papers were not available to show that loans of
€m and overdraft facilities of €, pro-
vided by Ulster Bank were approved by the board.
External auditors of TBCT have been in place for
ten years in contravention of good corporate gov-
ernance”. The next section on financial reporting
states: “Financial Procedures were not in place. A
procedures manual is currently being drawn up
by TBCT”. The report says: “All six VAT Returns
for were late and there was no segrega-
tion of duties in the preparations of these VAT
returns”. In the section relating to Expenditure
it reads: “Contract (including CEO contract) or
other documentation was unavailable in three
out of four cases”. The report goes on: “During
the expenditure testing, salary advances to staff
(including the CEO) of €, in were
noted. Company credit cards were used in
for personal expenditure amounting to €,
and later repaid through salary reductions. “The
majority of the credit card expenditure sampled
did not have appropriate receipts or documen-
tation to verify the business requirement for the
expenditure”. TBCT used its nebulous status as
a ‘Trust’ to evade the normal minima of corpo-
rate governance.
Recently, an ad hoc network of cultural organ-
isations from the Temple Bar Quarter met the
interim city manager, Philip Maguire, in a fee-
ble attempt to look like a coherent cultural body
which could influence the future for the collapsed
and disgraced TBCT. Of course, they were given
a pat on the head and told not to worry. The
group, inevitably, benefits from the cosy crony-
ism at TBCT, as nearly all of them rented property
from that organisation. They have not made any
public comment about the scandalous findings
mannix flynn
The culture of culture in Dublin is secretive,
nepotistic, child-like, elitist, feeble, spendthrift and
bureaucratic
— June – July 2013
of the DCC audit of TBCT, and are slow to make
any observations on the taxpayer-funded
Latitude Report which concluded that the trust
should be wound down within three years and its
activities taken on by Dublin City Council, to save
the council €, a year. Yet now with an
end in sight for TBCT, many of them are leaping
up and down wildly in order to save their posi-
tions and their cushy little numbers. Needless
to say, no actual practising artists were part of
this closed shop.
The Campaign for the Arts, the Theatre
Forums, Irish Actors Equity and Aosdána among
others must break the silence, even though they
may be part of the problem. It is said that the
arts and culture and the poets are good for shin-
ing light in other people’s dark corners; it is time
now to shine that light on our own.
A full evaluation and audit should take place of
exactly who got the money and what it was spent
on. One thing is for sure, it didn’t go to the art-
ist or the practitioner. It has certainly, however,
enhanced the bank balances of CEOs, Curators,
‘executive arts administrators’ and the chosen
elite of artists.
So what did TBCT do with your money?
What did Dublin Contemporary, which sput-
tered into our lives with a brief exhibition in the
former UCD Engineering building, run largely by
IMMA staff, do with the money, and what was its
final cost? What did the City Arts Centre, after it
decamped from its once vibrant headquarters on
City Quay, do with the money? Why did it recently
close its doors on Bachelors Walk and has it fully
accounted for the almost €m DCC given it to
move there in the first place? There has long been
financial mismanagement scandal in the Arts –
remember the Abbey Theatre, the James Joyce
documents and the most recent coverage in the
media on the Hugh Lane Gallery. I shall return
to these themes.
Lots of artists and individuals who want to
contribute and work in the arts in this country
just find it too difficult to get beyond the closed
door and the culture of the self-centred few.
More and more young Irish artists are leaving
this place, not because of the austerity and the
downturn in the economy, as artists are well used
to parsimony and hardship, but because, like so
many institutions in this country where there was
power and money, there was light-touch regula-
tion and a hands-off approach.
Let us not make the mistake of allowing those
who facilitated this situation in Temple Bar and
within the arts community to reorganise them-
selves to continue the same closed shop and
arrogant monopoly. We need an open, cultural-
ly-democratic process immediately and a new
system cannot be dictated by those who have
been found fumbling in the greasy till.
The artist has nothing to fear; the arts organi-
sation and those that have held sway for decades
should have everything to be concerned about.
What went on in the banking sector and with the
property boom, the scandals of the Church, and
the state’s failure to stand up for the people who
it is meant to serve, has dragged us into the black
depths of a moral and social morass. The arts
and cultural sector that this society looks to –
sometimes – for answers, became part of that
whole sorry mix of institutionalised corrosion
and corruptedness because of its failure to do
the basic decent thing – to be responsible, be
accountable, be trustworthy.
Currently the findings of the Latitude report
on TBCT’s corporate governance are being
reviewed by (perhaps tellingly) former IBEC
chief, Turlough O’Sullivan.
There is also an investigation, or rather a
witch hunt into press leaks from TBCT, evi-
dencing an obsession with who released what
it terms ‘confidential’ information. There was
nothing confidential about TBCT and the culture
of TBCT and its cronies. It was instead ‘secre-
tive’, an Irish speciality. Now that secret is out
and the City Council has sent in the suits and
the shirts and the blouses to begin the process
of forensically winding it down. What wasn’t
audited was the Temple Bar Rainscreen project.
For some strange reason the DCC internal audit
unit didn’t cover this. What we don’t want here
is a DCC cover-up or a whitewash. Remember,
DCC staff , and indeed Councillors, sat on the
board of TBCT over the years and they must be
held to account.
I certainly believe that the Irish people are
in for a culture-shock and a cultural awakening.
This is no terrible beauty it is just plain terri-
ble, and it is time now for artists everywhere to
stand up to the few and demand cultural democ-
racy and change. No more marginalisation or
pseudo-participation or appeasement. No more
childlike responses.
As an artist and an Independent Dublin City
Councillor it is my duty to bring this matter to
public attention not as a hissy fit but because I
believe we can develop a new culture of honesty
in this society, starting with arts and culture.
Ultimately those responsible for the crisis in
TBCT and the Temple Bar Cultural Quarter are
Dublin City Council and the state which com-
pletely took their eye off the ball. It is time for the
incoming city manager of Dublin City Council, to
enter stage right and get the past cleansed and
the record straight. This is just act one, scene
one, of the tragicomedy that is Cultureland
Dublin and all its players.
news
“
A DCC audit report, released
in March, into TBCT’s
working practices 2011-12,
makes an extraordinary 59
recommendations
What of Dublin
Contemporary, the City Arts
Centre, the Hugh Lane, and
IMMA?
“
The Temple Bar
