Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1994 > Committee of Public Accounts > Interim Report No. 01 - Appropriation Accounts 1992

AN COISTE UM CHUNTAIS PHOIBLÍ

COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Déardaoin 16 Nollaig 1993

Thursday 16 December 1993

The Committee met at 11 a.m.

MEMBERS PRESENT

DEPUTY JIM MITCHELL IN THE CHAIR

Mr. P. L. McDonnell (An tÁrd Reachtaire Cuntas agus Ciste) called and examined.

Mr. David Denny and Mr. Jim O’Farrell, Department of Finance, in attendance.

APPROPRIATION ACCOUNTS 1992

VOTE NO. 6 - NATIONAL GALLERY

Mr. Raymond Keaveney, Accounting Officer, National Gallery, called and examined.

Chairman: I welcome Mr. Keaveney and his officials. Perhaps Mr. Keaveney would introduce his officials to the Committee.

Mr. Keaveney: They are: Dr. Brian Kennedy, Assistant Director and Mary McCarthy, Finance Officer.

Mr. McDonnell: All that is before the Committee is the Appropriation Account of the National Gallery. I do not have any formal comment in my audit observations. As the Committee will see, the account includes the administration costs of the Gallery which are met from the Vote. There is also the grant-in-aid for the acquisition and conservation which was funded from the National Lottery. This account does not include any costs of refurbishment for the Gallery. That would be a charge on the Office of Public Works.

Chairman: How much does the OPW spend on the Gallery?

Mr. McDonnell: I think that in that year the Office of Public Works spent something under £400,000 on refurbishment. That would appear in the Office of Public Works, Vote 10, which the Committee has not considered yet.

Chairman: Mr. Keaveney, I suppose the big news this year for the National Gallery has been the acquisition, on a sort of a permanent loan as it were, of the Caravaggio. Is there any estimated value of that painting and could you give us a total estimated value of all the paintings in the National Gallery? What are the insurance arrangements?

Mr. Keaveney: The insurance arrangements are essentially that the collection is indemnified by the State and the State carries its own risk on the collection and provides the security for protecting that collection. With respect to the value of the Caravaggio all I can do is quote the Daily Telegraph which said that for once the term priceless is applicable. No painting of this stature has come on the market in recent years. It would be very difficult to establish a value.

Chairman: Approximately how many paintings in total are in the possession of the National Gallery?

Mr. Keaveney: Over 12,500 oil paintings. The total collection counting water colours, drawings, prints, sculpture, 13,000 approximately.

Chairman: What is the estimated value - £100 million?

Mr. Keaveney: You are talking hundreds of millions.

Chairman: How many hundreds approximately?

Mr. Keaveney: Between two and three hundred millions.

Chairman: There is no insurance on that? The State carries its own risk?

Mr. Keaveney: The State carries its own risk.

Chairman: All of these paintings are held in the National Gallery?

Mr. Keaveney: Not all of them at any particular time. There are paintings on loan to Government offices, embassies and to other cultural institutions and there are also paintings away at major exhibitions abroad. Currently we have 53 paintings in Japan which are touring on exhibition.

Chairman: While paintings are being moved around the World as they of course should be, I am sure it is not a one way flow either, we can get in some from other countries - presumably there is a risk of damage during transportation. Are there no insurance arrangements?

Mr. Keaveney: No. With respect to works that are lent out on that basis every effort is made to protect the paintings and the finest quality packaging is used, bona fide carriers are used and the paintings are always insured or indemnified when they travel to major exhibitions abroad. It is a sine qua non that the institutions organising the exhibitions comply with the requirements which we determine regarding security and insurance. They are uppermost in our minds.

Chairman: The Committee will be anxious to ensure that these extremely valuable national possessions are adequately protected. Are you satisfied that there are adequate arrangements, for instance against theft in the National Gallery or against theft to paintings outside the National Gallery?

Mr. Keaveney: Yes, we are very conscious of this responsibility and at all times work to ensure that the paintings are properly protected and when we lend pictures out to exhibitions abroad we require that the institutions requesting the loan have adequate security measures which meet international standards. With respect to our domestic situation we are always working on improving security and considerable investment has been made over the past two to three years in enhancing the security measures at the National Gallery which are now, with regard to electronics and surveillance, of a standard comparable with any institution in these islands.

Chairman: Can you put your hand on your heart and tell the Committee that what happened in Russborough House some years ago could not happen in the National Gallery?

Mr. Keaveney: It certainly should not happen.

Chairman: So you can sleep easy at night not worrying?

Mr. Keaveney: That is probably overstating it.

Chairman: Can you tell me about fire protection?

Mr. Keaveney: Fire protection is a major concern and the Gallery has a complete addressable fire protection system in operation. All rooms are covered with sensing devices and any time an alarm goes off you not only know there is an alarm you know precisely the location of that alarm. There is fire fighting equipment distributed about the building to help fight fire and there are direct lines to the fire brigade.

Chairman: Can you tell me, of the 13,000 pieces of art that you own, how many of those are actually on display and how many of them are in basements or in storage?

Mr. Keaveney: You ask that question at an interesting time because as you may be aware there is a very significant refurbishment programme in operation at the gallery. This has meant that 40 per cent of our exhibition display is out of commission and perforce we are obliged to put much of the collection into storage temporarily while this work is in progress. It would be our intention by 1996-97 to have all of the collection worthy of display on display and available to the public.

Chairman: In the Gallery?

Mr. Keaveney: Yes.

Chairman: Has any further thought been given to using some other public premises like, for instance, Leinster House for displaying the surplus?

Mr. Keaveney: We work with various departments and with embassies abroad and with various other cultural institutions, and where appropriate lend works for display in areas where they are available to the public.

Chairman: Is the National Gallery premises adequate in size for the total collection?

Mr. Keaveney: I have just indicated that we are in the middle of a major works programme, the first phase of which will be completed hopefully in March 1995. As you are probably aware we are also embarking on the provision of an extension to the gallery on to Clare Street which would provide somewhere in the region of 40,0000 square feet of extra accommodation. This would be used to exhibit the permanent collection and also to provide the Gallery coincidentally with a major exhibition space of international specification so that the traffic would not always be one way and we would be in a position to bring major exhibitions into Dublin.

Chairman: Does the Gallery take any steps to bring art to other centres around the country?

Mr. Keaveney: We have just contributed a very significant number of paintings to a major exhibition at the Crawford Municipal Gallery in Cork. We lend to other exhibitions in the country provided that they can provide conditions and security that respect the requirements.

Chairman: What is the international assessment of the Irish National Gallery compared to other national galleries?

Mr. Keaveney: I think the international assessment has to be very high indeed. We have a collection which has grown in stature quite miraculously over the past 15 years. The quality of the collection continues to be enhanced by major additions to the collections such as Vermeer, Velazquez and Caravaggio. These are paintings of international importance. With respect to the operation of the Gallery it has also grown in prominence. The attendance figures are now in the range of one million a year which puts the Gallery on the same level as the Rijksmuseum, the Uffizi in Florence or other major institutions abroad. Over the past two years while the refurbishment programme has been in process and many works consigned to storage in the basement, the Gallery has taken that opportunity to send major exhibitions abroad to promote the reputation of the Gallery in the United States and in Japan and elsewhere.

Chairman: In modern art, does the Gallery play a role in trying to encourage artistic excellence or are there any great artists now? Are we going to have any Picasso or Dali that we will be talking about in 50 or 100 years time?

Mr. Keaveney: A major element in the mission of the Gallery is to educate people about art, its importance and significance to people’s lives. We work at it mostly through an historical process but we do have certain elements of contemporary involvement, most noticeably around Christmas when we run the Christmas arts holiday. The Gallery is a vehicle for familiarising people and educating people about art, but with respect to contemporary art that responsibility is primarily the remit of the IMMA in the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham.

Deputy Foley: Under subhead A the total amount is £106,000 and there is excess expenditure of £13,000.

Mr. Keaveney: You mean Subhead A3.

Deputy Foley: Yes - cost of uniforms.

Mr. Keaveney: In 1992 we had to pay for two sets of uniforms because there was a delay in the provision of uniforms which are supplied from outside the Gallery. We had two sets of bills to pay in the one year.

Deputy Foley: How many uniforms were purchased?

Mr. Keaveney: We have uniforms for all the attendant staff which would be 43 uniforms which is made up of 22 attendant staff. I do not get a uniform.

Chairman: Would you like one?

Mr. Keaveney: They say Hugh Lane had a uniform but I do not know whether that is an apocryphal story.

Deputy Foley: A sum of £9,468 was paid to one employee for extra attendance?

Mr. Keaveney: Yes. Because of the rostering system in the Gallery and because of the allocation of responsibility and because of the locking up and closing down procedures, there is one senior attendant who clocks up a lot of overtime due to his responsibilities.

Deputy Foley: Could you have employed another person and so avoid having one person doing so much overtime?

Mr. Keaveney: He does not do it all the time. If you look you will see that other people gain overtime as well but this would be the most significant.

Deputy O’Malley: The amount of £116,000 that is voted for acquisition is derisory and meaningess in modern conditions.

Mr. Keaveney: Of which £100,000 is available for acquisitions in this Vote.

Deputy O’Malley: Is the rest for conservation?

Mr. Keaveney: Conservation and library.

Deputy O’Malley: That figure, I suggest, is really a bit meaningless in modern conditions.

Mr. Keaveney: It is very modest.

Deputy O’Malley: The Gallery is perhaps overstocked with 19th century Irish paintings of mixed quality and interest. It is very heavy and a lot of Irish artists of different parts of the 19th century are to be found there. Would you consider selling, without any detriment to the Gallery and its range, some of these paintings of which you have many, in order that you could acquire more meaningful works of art that would give a greater spread and would be of greater interest to art lovers and to students?

Mr. Keaveney: There are two aspects to the problem of selling off works. The debate of the deaccessioning is one of the hottest issues in the museum worldwide and there are conflicting views. With regard to our position at the National Gallery, in some respects it is academic because what we are talking about appreciably are the very minor works in the collection and, by their nature, if they are sold off, then the amount of revenue that would accrue would be extremely modest and would not put you in a position to improve your purchasing power. Another sensitive aspect to deaccessioning which needs to be kept in mind is that much of what the Gallery has acquired over the years which has truly enhanced the collection has been by way of gift and benefaction. It would send a very ambiguous signal to people who wish to benefact the Gallery if it were indicated that perhaps at a future date what they have given the Gallery in their generosity would actually be sold off and discarded. We are on the horns of a dilemma in that respect.

Deputy O’Malley: The Shaw bequest was of great value to the Gallery over the years. What is the Gallery’s income from that bequest and has it any significant annual income from other bequests?

Mr. Keaveney: It is the most significant single source of revenue outside of the Vote which comes to the gallery and it runs in the region of about £150,000 per year, because it is related to the number of performances, television productions, how many books sell and other relevant aspects. That bequest may run out in the year 2000 because that would be the 50th anniversary of Shaw’s death. As legislation currently stands royalties are only available for 50 years following the passing away of an individual. Another source of income is from Hugh Lane who left the proceeds of his estate to the Gallery. It is a much more modest sum. It is a capital sum which is invested and from which moneys are applied from time to time for the acquisition of paintings.

Deputy O’Malley: It is from the musicals that were made of Shaw’s plays that most of the income came.

Mr. Keaveney: Yes.

Deputy O’Malley: Is there any chance somebody would put John Bull’s Other Island to music?

Mr. Keaveney: If there is somebody brave enough.

Deputy O’Malley: The Gallery has a very substantial stock. There are thousands of paintings which the public never see at all. I heard your reply to the Chairman when he asked about the possibility of exhibiting some of these elsewhere. You referred to an exhibition in the Crawford Gallery in Cork but that is for a month or six weeks or so. What I would have in mind is that you would make some of these works permanently available throughout the country. I know you say that security may not be adequate but could they be lent to somewhere like the new Hunt Museum in Limerick where what will be there will be at least as valuable as anything that is in the National Gallery.

Mr. Keaveney: We have discussed the matter with the Hunt Museum and have agreed to lend a significant number of works to it when they have finished the building and equipped and fitted it out. It has been agreed by the board that 50 works from the National Gallery will go to the Hunt Museum.

Deputy O’Malley: What about the National Self Portrait Gallery in the University of Limerick?

Mr. Keaveney: We work with the National Self Portrait Gallery in advising and supporting them. We also have responsibility for the National Portrait collection at the National Gallery and it is very much our intention to rehabilitate the National Portrait Gallery. By the year 1996/97 we would hope to have reconstituted the Portrait Gallery in its traditional home at the National Gallery.

Deputy O’Malley: You are expanding the Gallery, necessarily so, at the moment with the proposed building at Clare Street. Would you consider that any future permanent buildings for the Gallery should be situated outside Dublin?

Mr. Keaveney: We would be open to discussion on that. It would depend on the merits of the proposal but we would be open-minded on it certainly.

Deputy McCormack: In relation to subhead A.3, incidental expenses, is that entirely uniform?

Mr. Keaveney: No, it also covers, for instance, night security which is a very significant element in expenditure.

Deputy McCormack: 22 or 42 employees?

Mr. Keaveney: There are 22 security staff currently employed in the Gallery.

Deputy McCormack: I would make it with the overrun that that is almost £5,500 each.

Mr. Keaveney: The most significant element in the vote is £72,000 which is expended on night security. Cleaning and service materials amount to £10,000; lectures and tours amount to £10,000 and there are other significant elements within that part of the Vote.

Deputy McCormack: I am glad to discover that because I thought when you answered Deputy Foley that it was about uniforms and it seemed to be an extraordinary amount. Maybe you could give us a breakdown on what this £119,000.

Mr. Keaveney: We can provide a more detailed and accurate account of the various elements.

Deputy McCormack: Tell us what is in it?

Mr. Keaveney: Security, advertising, cleaning, service materials, official photographic records, lectures and tours, carriage of pictures and uniforms. It covers a very significant range of elements within the administration of the Gallery of which the most significant is the provision of night security which amounts to £72,000.

Chairman: The Caravaggio donation or bequest from the Jesuits is a very significant bequest to the Gallery. Can any steps be taken to recognise the magnificent generosity of the Jesuits? Is there something that the State should do?

Mr. Keaveney: You have asked the question. I do not have the answer because I do not have the resources. In as much as the Gallery has it within its powers, we have tried to acknowledge the tremendous generosity that has been exercised.

Chairman: And public spirit.

Mr. Keaveney: Yes. All we can say is that we would just hope that it would be replicated elsewhere.

Deputy O’Malley: Are you putting it up to the Dominicans?

Deputy McCormack: Or are you putting it up to the Public Accounts Committee to do it?

Mr. Keaveney: Certainly the Jesuits have set a lead.

Chairman: They have set an extraordinary lead and we as a Committee here should take the opportunity of recognising the magnificent public spirit and generosity of the Jesuits and record our thanks.

Deputy McCormack: Can we not do any more than that Chairman?

Chairman: Have you any suggestions? We have no knighthoods to give out.

Deputy McCormack: The very least we could do is to acknowledge it.

Chairman: Could I ask you for your assessment of the other artistic collections around the country. As a country do we have a lot of art - either collections or individual paintings? Are there any other Caravaggios hanging about?

Mr. Keaveney: We are looking but we have not found any yet. We run a clinic every Thursday morning at the Gallery where the public are invited to bring works of art in to be inspected. It is quite extraordinary that over the years that this service has been in operation, no significant masterpiece has been uncovered. The service is there and we are always happy to look at paintings that the public want to have assessed.

Chairman: I think we have discussed this sufficiently. I want to note the National Gallery Vote without any other observation.

Vote noted.

The witness withdrew.