Dermot McLaughlin mismanaged Temple Bar and, facilitated by the uncontrolled Arts Council which never took responsibility for failures in Temple Bar, is now arrogantly calling out mismanagement in Listowel.
By Michael Smith
Temple Bar Properties converted Temple Bar into a high-rent drink-driven cultural centre in the 1990s. Its focus then moved from physical regeneration to consolidating the cultural offering it was housing and, in 2006, it became Temple Bar Cultural Trust (TBCT), with a new board appointed by Dublin City Council. It was a private and limited not-for-profit company engaged in cultural development in Temple Bar, organising Temple Bar Food Market, concerts, circus, street, Culture Night and Handel’s Day. In 2005 it had an income of €2m, with €1.6m of this coming from its 50-strong property portfolio estimated to be worth at least €100m. Its CEO was Dermot McLaughlin, a 17-year Arts Council employee who had risen to become its assistant director. He was also a talented fiddler.
Governance of TBCT was dysfunctional and in 2011 a review by Latitude, a consultancy, recommended it be wound up and subsumed into the Council.
Independent City Councillor Mannix Flynn, a board member of TBCT, tabled a successful motion to that effect. The then city manager John Tierney agreed to commission a review of the organisation focusing on corporate governance standards, board representation and whether the trust was fulfilling its brief as a cultural promoter and enabler.
However, a Council audit report published in March 2013 levelled charges of a different level of seriousness against TBCT, including failures of corporate governance and “control weaknesses and/or regulatory violations [that] represent unacceptable exposure and risk” for the company.
McLaughlin remains a continuing consulting favourite for funding by the Arts Council of which he was once a senior employee
The report found that the trust’s board minutes and papers were “not available” in relation to certain financial transactions, noting that TBCT’s business plan for 2010 and 2011 had not been approved by its board.
There were found to be no appropriate financial procedures and the fact the same external auditors had been acting for over 10 years was deemed “in contravention of good corporate governance”. The party at most risk from these failures was the publicly-funded Arts Council which funds most of the cultural activity in Temple Bar, not exactly an oasis of private culture, to the tune of €9m in 2022. The Arts Council notably failed to investigate whether certain sums paid by it to institutions in Temple Bar were forwarded as intended to TBCT.
A TBCT-commissioned review of the audit by former IBEC chief Turlough O’Sullivan found that the McLaughlin-fed board had “failed in its duty of oversight and governance by not enquiring into and satisfying itself that proper procedures were in place around financial transactions”. O’Sullivan was no subversive so it was telling that even he found this level of delinquency. McLaughlin resigned, agreeing not to pursue actions for defamation, and obtaining a substantial severance package after a disciplinary hearing into his role in offering generous redundancy packages to four senior staff members was cancelled.
So what’s happened to the man who presided over the mess? Funny thing is McLaughlin doesn’t now mention his period in the van in Dublin’s Cultural Quarter. He remains a continuing consulting favourite for funding by his former employer, in the absence of a clear Arts Council policy on how it procures its consultants.
According to now free agent Dermot McLaughlin he’s “been involved in voluntary work with organisations and on boards for many years. I enjoy being involved, I’m always interested in finding ways to help, and I love learning new things. So for me, voluntary work in enriching and valuable”.
His voluntary work which came largely to an end after 2008 included spells as: Chairman (2011-2018) of Irish Traditional Music Archive; Chairman (current) of TG4 Gradam Ceoil selection panel (annual national traditional music awards); Chairman (2007-2011) of Dublin Dance Festival; Chairman (2007) of Údarás na Gaeltachta and Arts Council National Monitoring Committee on Gaeltacht arts; Board Member (2006-2008): Irish Architecture Foundation.
Beyond this strings to McLaughlin’s bow include that he was: Board Member (2003-2005): Rough Magic Theatre Company; Founder and Board Member (1994 to date): Scoil Cheoil Frankie Kennedy; Founder and Committee Member (1982 to date): Cairdeas na bhFidléirí.
In 2014 he set up his own independent consultancy practice, Creative Strategic Solutions.
After that he was involved in the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Audit of Traditional Music in Northern Ireland (2014-15); the Arts Council’s review of contemporary music policy initiative (2015) Ealaín na Gaeltachta’s Competitive assessment of funding proposals (2015); and An Cosán Glas’s Business planning, negotiation strategy (2015).
It’s amazing how far an unassailable relationship with the Arts Council can take a man.
He also claims (admits?) he was involved in the “Meeting House Square €2.2m capital redevelopment, business planning and marketing project (2010)”. Sounds good, so let’s have a look at what the project architect says about this. Seán Harrington architects’ website is as sanguine as McLaughlin is about the situation. “There is a saying in Ireland that you can have four seasons in one day. Warm spring sunshine can lead to intense summer light. Lively autumn gales can turn to a sudden wintry shower because Irish skies are constantly changing. Seán Harrington architects was commissioned to find a solution. The innovative solution provides a convertible umbrella covering over a popular public square in Dublin Temple Bar area. The landmark umbrella projects bespoke design comprises of four 21-m high steel structural masts”.
This is shameless and shocking when you realise the, admittedly attractive, umbrellas don’t work, never really did. In the last few weeks one of the brolly arms buckled and repair costs are so prohibitive as to make its reinstatement unlikely.
The audit commissioned by Dublin City Council was particularly scathing about Temple Bar Square: “Board minutes were altered, deleting concerns raised by some Councillors, and provided to Ulster Bank to support a loan; Reams of financial data relating to the project were deleted from the trust’s computer system; A total of €2.7m of taxpayers’ money was spent on the project – despite just €2m being budgeted.
There was no competitive procurement process before the architects’ appointment” though the EU requires one for expenditure over €25,000.
The audit concluded that the number and the extent of weaknesses uncovered represents “unacceptable exposure and risk”.
There was trouble too when it emerged part of Harrington’s payment was to be his exclusive use of the umbrellaed square for a series of ten of his own events, worth €35,000.
Harrington continues to avail of goodwill from Dublin City Council. His considerable talents have found recent form in schemes at York St whose roof gardens are unusable, lifts don’t work and where there are flooding issues, as well as at Denzille Place, Holles St and the Rosie Hackett Bridge, among other schemes.
Dermot McLaughlin remains in good standing with the Arts Council from which he receives work. It is not clear if all of it is put out to tender first. A recent project, funded by the Arts Council, was to look into the Listowel Writers Week Festival in County Kerry which was founded in 1971 and claims to be Ireland’s oldest literary festival.
McLaughlin found that a “toxic culture and sense of entitlement” existed within the committee of Writers Week though he did not really instance where and when, despite dark talk of “not implementing [unspecified] policies”
Last year he compiled a report making eight recommendations for the future development of the festival, including the disbanding of the 30-member committee, upgrading of the board, binning of the festival’s chairperson, and the hiring of a “curator”, to help plan the festival. Stephen Connolly was appointed to the role.
There’s no messing around with Dermot McLaughlin. His report is full of sweeping imperatives: “I stress the urgency of timely implementation in full of all the recommendations”. He’s clearly attuned with the Arts Council’s evolved impatience reflected in their reduction of funding in the years running up to the report, with funding in 2022 at €60,000: “The ‘do nothing’ option of maintaining the status quo…poses significant risk to the prospect of the Company being able to secure or maintain adequate and stable funding from private sources to sustain its operations”.
McLaughlin found that a “toxic culture and sense of entitlement” existed within the committee of Writers’ Week though he did not really instance where and when, despite dark talk of “not implementing [unspecified] policies”. With his background on TBCT, you would expect him to know. It seems the tradition of amateurism, instigated by co-founder John B Keane, is no longer tolerable to the Arts Council (Interestingly, fellow co-founder Bryan McMahon went on to chair the Abbey Theatre in Dublin with Arts Council support). But it has not pointed to any downside and there is a loss of community, zeal, conviviality and abandon every time the arts administrators win.
Not surprisingly the subverted committee of the festival expressed no confidence in the board which had commissioned the committee’s demise.
Its statement claims that the Board of Directors had not given a sufficient explanation of the reasons for abolition and asserted that the committee didn’t recognise the festival as described in the report, and that the use of words such as “toxic” were horrifying to its members.
It all prompted the resignation of the Festival’s President, Colm Tóibín who described the committee as representing “best practice”. Colm McCann, Roddy Doyle, Clare Keegan and Edna O’Brien wrote an open letter of support, highlighting the need for passion. The disbanded committee was invited to sell tickets and place chairs but was too insulted to re-engage.
Fianna Fáil Senator Ned O’Sullivan, who in 2007 made 16 of the calls from Leinster House that enabled Michael Healy Rae’s victory in Celebrities Go Wild, at a cost of €2600 to the Oireachtas, appealed to the board to turn back from its decision describing it as cultural vandalism. He offered the unlikely view that the Arts Council-funded report, compiled by an ex-Arts Council employee did not represent the Arts Council’s view on the board, and claimed it had confirmed that to him.
But it won’t and the 2023 Writers Week festival in June, with funding down and adverse publicity, was under-publicised, under-attended and just a little joyless.
