Síle de Valera seems unable to articulate and implement her own vision for many parts of her arts portfolio, writes Victoria White.

Síle de Valera did nothing to block the appointment of Dr Brian Kennedy as director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art. The Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands put it on the Dáil record on December 12th. "I categorically refute any suggestion that I made any views known about any of the candidates for director and chief executive . . . at IMMA. Neither were my views canvassed on the matter by any member of the board . . . I again 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," she said.

What we do know since Fintan O'Toole's article in this newspaper on December 20th, however, is that a senior Fianna Fáil politician canvassed Marie Donnelly, the former chairman of the museum, not to appoint Kennedy.

A senior figure in the arts world did the same. A person involved in Government projects canvassed Donnelly's husband. And Fiona O'Malley, the Progressive Democrats councillor and IMMA board member, was canvassed by a person she describes as "someone I'd know well through political channels".

De Valera's non-involvement in the canvassing exposes her to another accusation: that she was unable to defend the board she appointed from political interference, even from her own party. Worse, was she unable to stop people purporting to represent her views? The people who canvassed againstDr Kennedy had a consistent message: that de Valera would regard his appointment as controversial.

Kennedy's tenure at the National Gallery of Australia has indeed been controversial, but there are reasons closer to home why Fianna Fáil may have considered him undesirable.

He had clashed publicly with de Valera over the visit of the Book of Kells to Australia in 2000 and, way back in 1990, his history of the Arts Council, Dreams And Responsibilities, was considered disrespectful to the legacy of Charles Haughey.

The incident raises the spectre of a Minister whose authority is not fully respected. The impression is deepened by the fact that de Valera has not publicly acted against those who used her name in vain. And she need only ask Donnelly who they are.

The former IMMA chairman said in the article of December 20th that she would reveal their names if the Minister asked. The Minister has not asked, and she said through a spokeswoman on December 20th that she would not ask.

To the Opposition's great shame, she has not been forced to ask.

This sense of a lack of authority is reinforced by an e-mail sent by Eoghan Harris, another member of the IMMA board, to Donnelly before November 20th, 2000, the day she abruptly announced to Declan McGonagle, who was then IMMA's director, that she was going to advertise his job. A section quoted by O'Toole referred to a conversation Harris had had with Michael Ronayne, the Minister's personal press adviser, about McGonagle's removal.

"Although I have no doubt Síle will do as Michael wants, there is a distinct danger that as soon as she hears this she might sound off to some eejit who would talk, or call Declan or whatever," it read. That a board member would express the opinion that a Minister would do what his or her press adviser wanted is astonishing. Again, it shows a disrespect for the Minister's authority.

IMMA will not recover until someone of the calibre of Kennedy is found to accept the now poisoned chalice of the directorship. That is unlikely to happen before the general election.

With luck, however, some of the other unresolved chapters of de Valera's five-year ministry will find some sort of closure before she has to do battle for her seat in Clare.

When I interviewed the Minister shortly after she took office, in June 1997, she was keen to expand on her pre-election suggestion that the Government set up an Irish Academy for the Performing Arts in the capital, as a millennium project. "I would think it most important that we have a centre for the performing arts in Dublin," she said. "We're the only European country which doesn't have such a centre. It has also been proposed that a suitable site for such a centre is Earlsfort Terrace, and I'm certainly inclined to that view."

The idea came from the director of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, the pianist John O'Conor. He persuaded the Minister of its feasibility, and she quickly adopted it as an election pitch. IAPA had a ring about it, and the thought of young students in different fields of performance learning from each other - and from the National Symphony Orchestra, rehearsing across the way - was attractive.

Until it hit the cold, post-election air of reality.For a start, University College Dublin was ensconced in the Earlsfort Terrace buildings, and then, as now, showed no sign of moving. The plan had no understanding of the developments in performance training in other parts of the Republic. In particular, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, who had just put in place a range of performance courses at the University of Limerick, considered the idea "post- colonial".

There have followed five years of wrangling - which even now have not ended. The Taoiseach backed the academy but was known strongly to favour Dublin City University as its location.

Two independent reports, one of them commissioned by de Valera from Peter Renshaw of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, in London, recommended DCU as the place for IAPA, with "nodes" at the University of Limerick and the Institute for Choreography and Dance, in Cork.

From O'Conor's point of view, what was much worse was that the report suggested IAPA take over the Royal Irish Academy of Music's BAs in music performance and music education, which would relegate O'Conor's institution to a kind of junior school, feeding students to the new academy. O'Conor withdrew from the project he had dreamed up.

The making of Renshaw's report took only six months. He met six people from the Irish World Music Centre, in Limerick, for example, but did not consult the Samuel Beckett Centre, which houses the drama school of Trinity College, Dublin. This is even more surprising when you consider that he made the Gaiety School of Acting the basis of the proposed drama school. The school runs only two-year diploma courses in acting; Trinity awards theatre-studies degrees.

The excellent record of the Gaiety School is not in dispute, but its reputation would have been better served had Renshaw studied all the options before promoting it to IAPA - especially as Patrick Sutton, the school's director, works with the Taoiseach on the presentation of his public image and was appointed by de Valera to the Arts Council.

Despite these shortcomings, de Valera stuck to Renshaw's model for the €45 million third-level institution she proposed to the Government in 1999. Arguably, she had been incompletely advised for the second time. Arguably, she had been too easy to influence.

The Irish Academy for the Performing Arts now falls within the responsibility of the Department of Education and Science, whose inertia on the issue is breathtaking. Last week saw the farce of Carmel Naughton, the chairwoman of IAPA's Interim Governing Authority, telling The Irish Times that the academy would definitely not go to DCU, and Michael Woods, the Minister for Education and Science, the next day issuing a press release to say it certainly would go there.

There is likely more than departmental inefficiency at work, however. It is probably hard to make progress on IAPA because the idea needs to go back to the drawing board.

When it comes to many parts of her arts portfolio, the Minister seems unable to articulateand progress her vision. The saga of the Abbey Theatre is another one that is still running. There is no doubt but that the Abbey could have played this one better.

In June 2000 it was announced that the Minister was backing a €63.5 million redevelopment of the National Theatre on its present site, and the Taoiseach backed the project. Later that summer, however, the theatre received two offers of large brownfield sites close to the city centre: two sites at Spencer Dock, another at Grand Canal Dock.

In fairness to the Abbey board, it was right to consider the offers carefully. The Minister toured all of the sites and, in October 2000, asked the board to come back to her with its preferred option.

Rightly or wrongly, the board decided on Grand Canal Dock, communicating its decision to de Valera on October 27th. It did not receive a reply - and, indeed, until a press conference in February last year had not received a reply.

In a letter sent to the Minister last month, which The Irish Times has seen, James Hickey, the Abbey chairman, describes how the theatre walked itself into a public-relations disaster.

"It has been the tradition of the Abbey Theatre every year that the artistic director has a press conference announcing his programme for the year at the beginning of February," he wrote. "It was realised by the board of directors that questions would be asked about the proposals for the building and it was agreed that at that stage the artistic director would simply state the up-to-date position as outlined above and, in particular, would mention the preferred option, which had been communicated to the Minister over three months previously and which therefore was on the public record and which remained unreplied to.

"The press conference went ahead, and as you must remember, resulting in an enormous amount of press coverage about the Abbey Theatre moving southside. Apart from the media failure to understand that all that had happened was that the board of directors had expressed a preferred option (given the options available as outlined above), every attempt was made subsequently to reiterate and clarify this.

"Nonetheless, given the extensive consultation with the Minister as well as the written communication of three months previously, the board of directors was surprised and upset when the Taoiseach issued a statement expressing his surprise at the U-turn from the March 2000 position. The obvious conclusion had to be that Mr Ahern and his officials had not been kept advised of developments by the Minister and her Department (or if he had, his views on the matter had not been communicated to the board)."

The theatre can be criticised for not contacting the Taoiseach directly. It should also be noted that Ronayne contacted the Abbey the day before the press conference, expressing concern about the announcement. It has to be asked, however, why the Minister knew of the theatre's preferred site for more than three months but did not respond officially.

Philip Furlong, the Department's Secretary General, arranged a meeting with representatives of Dublin Corporation, including John Fitzgerald, the city manager, and representatives of the Office of Public Works at which the possibility was raised of acquiring properties adjoining the theatre. "It was clear from the meeting," says Hickey's letter, "that Dublin Corporation in particular was extremely unhappy with the Department at the prospect of the Department facilitating the Abbey Theatre's departure to any site whether on the north docks or the south docks . . . No such view had previously come from the Minister or her Department."

The Department commissioned two reports on the theatre's options from the Office of Public Works. Despite repeated requests, however, the theatre received a copy of neither. Even as late as last November, the Secretary General told the theatre that the second report's contents were "too sensitive".

The Abbey was told that the Minister would soon be meeting the Taoiseach to discuss the reports. Instead of there being any communication between the Minister and the Abbey, the Minister spoke to the Dáil. Hickey's letter continues: "The board was surprised at not being told in advance about a parliamentary question the Minister answered in early November, in which the Minister announced it was her preferred option that the Abbey Theatre be redeveloped on an extended version of the existing site and that the Minister had been meeting with the board of directors of the Abbey Theatre on this matter.

"In fact, no formal meeting had taken place between members of the board of directors of the theatre and the Minister since the meeting of October 10th, 2000, and the last official meeting between a member of the board of directors and the Department and Department officials was the one which took place on February 7th, 2001, where Dublin Corporation and the OPW attended."

Hickey has since repeatedly telephoned the Secretary General, who has repeatedly said he expects there will soon be a meeting between the Minister and the Taoiseach that will bring the Abbey some news. This still has not happened.

It took 16 years for the current Abbey Theatre to be developed. Politics move slowly. Dublin Corporation has placed a compulsory purchase order on the Carlton Cinema, on O'Connell Street, and some hopeful people imagine a plan may be cooking for the Abbey to move there, and face onto Main Street, Ireland. It's possible. But why has the Minister again not articulated her vision and communicated it to the theatre? Is it because she does not feel free to speak to the theatre, even privately, without the sanction of the Taoiseach?

One achievement that cannot be taken from the Minister is her success in persuading the Department of Finance to give her the resources to fund fully the Arts Council's Arts Plans. When she came to office she increased the council's funding to €33 million, doing so a year before the target set by her predecessor, Michael D. Higgins. She drew down €127 million to fund the Arts Plan for 1999-2001 and has managed to find €47.7 million to fund the first year of the next plan.

But why fund just one year? Where is the funding for the next plan? The document is still in her Department, but she has not yet recommended it be adopted by Government.

Despite her very practical support for the Arts Council, the discussion document she launched in 2000, Towards A New Framework For The Arts In Ireland (2000), questioned the role of the independent council as a policy-making body, and floated the idea that the Department might make policy instead. The indications now are that the Arts Bill, which is a year off schedule, will not, in the end, abolish what is called the "arm's-length principle" of policy-making for the arts. But the thrust of the discussion document was surprising from a Minister who was so actively funding the council. Again, her vision is hard to discern.

This impression was reinforced when, at a time when her own Arts Council was rowing about funding with the Gate Theatre, she publicly allied herself with the Gate, describing it as a "beacon of excellence" at the Harold Pinter Festival in New York last year.

One vision she articulates very well is her desire to be re-elected in Clare. She quickly appointed Noel Crowley, the Clare county librarian, to the Arts Council, as well as Úna Ní Mhurchú, the Clare-born artistic director of the Brú Ború Theatre, in Cashel. This centre was enhanced last year by the €3.8 million Sounds of History interpretative centre. Brú Ború is connected to Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, and Ní Mhurchú's husband is Comhaltas's director, the Fianna Fáil senator Labhrás Ó Murchú.

Nine per cent of the very welcome ACCESS grants for cultural infrastructure - worth more than €45 million - announced last August went to Clare-based projects. For Clare, however, the jewel in the crown must be the €8.25 million Glór performance centre for traditional music, in Ennis, which opened last autumn.

De Valera is expected to top the poll; her predecessor, Michael D. Higgins, nearly lost his seat in Galway in the last election, despite his very clearly articulated vision for the arts. It could be that de Valera has her priorities right. But unless there is a sudden flurry of activity for the arts between now and the election, many in the wider artistic community will be looking forward to seeing the face of the next Arts Minister.