Allegation of interference at IMMA 'mischievous'

Suggestions that the Minister for Arts interfered in the selection of a director for the Irish Museum of Modern Art are "entirely mischievous", Ms de Valera said yesterday.

"The implication of outside interference has annoyed me greatly," the Minister told the Dβil. "There was no question of me interfering," she said of the controversy in which two board members and its chairwoman resigned and an applicant for the job withdrew.

She stressed: "I categorically deny that there was any interference by me, and I did not ask anybody to make my views known, directly or indirectly. I kept them to myself."

The Minister said she would make decisions to fill the vacancies created by the board members' resignations "in due course", and she was confident the new chairman, Mr Eoin McGonigal, would "give the leadership required to move forward and decide on the next director".

Fine Gael's Arts spokesman, Mr Dinny McGinley, said the whole episode over the appointment of a director and the resignation of board members "has been handled in a ham-fisted and spiteful manner".

He said the "professional and personal integrity of honourable people has been undermined in a scurrilous way", including that of Dr Brian Kennedy, director of the National Gallery of Australia, "a very high position of international repute".

Mr McGinley said "very specific allegations" had been made by board members who had resigned, that "the attitude of the Minister" to the appointment of Dr Kennedy "was conveyed to them", and he believed "the State, which has inflicted this damage" should apologise to him.

The Minister said she had met two board members two days after they submitted letters of resignation, regarding concerns about the selection process. "I made it clear that my role at that meeting could only be to listen to what they had to say," she said. She sought to meet the chairwoman, but she tendered her resignation with immediate effect, before the meeting could be arranged.

Labour's arts spokesman, Mr Brian O'Shea, accepted what the Minister said, but asked if she had "any idea as to what gave rise to that allegation which was made on the national airwaves?"

"I did not make any particular view known, either about that candidate or any other candidate, either directly or indirectly, and I cannot be any clearer than that," Ms de Valera insisted.