Guinness Ireland Ltd yesterday announced a donation of £250,000 to the National Gallery of Ireland. In return, the gallery's print room is to be renamed the Guinness Print Room.
Half the money, which will go towards the institution's new Millennium Wing building fund, has come from Guinness, and half from its parent company, Diageo. According to the latter's director of corporate citizenship, Mr Brian Duffy, this is the first time that the business through its charitable trust, the Diageo Foundation, has given financial assistance to an Irish organisation.
Diageo has previously provided support for the Royal Academy in London and the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Diageo has made a commitment to give 1 per cent of its worldwide annual trading profit, estimated at £18 million, to local communities each year.
"We try to encourage our businesses and our employees to get involved in the community," said Mr Duffy, "and the arts are one very good way of doing that."
The National Gallery's Millennium Wing is currently under construction. Designed by the Scottish architects Benson & Forsyth, it will add some 44,000 sq. ft to the building and is due for completion by April 2001. The rooms are expected to be open to the public by mid-summer.
Yesterday the gallery's chairman, Ms Carmel Naughton, said total costs for the project were in the region of £20 million, of which £4 million was spent in acquiring and managing the building's site on Clare Street. The government has contributed £2 million, and a further £7.5 million has been earmarked from the European Regional Development Fund.
While the National Gallery was originally expected to find £3 million of the budget, its contribution doubled as costs rose. It has now come up with £5,250,000 but, said Ms Naughton, another £1 million needs to be found.
"We're trying to get the rest of the money through private donors," she said, "and we'd like to keep the gallery's own funds for other things."
In November 1998 the National Gallery's fund-raising activities came under scrutiny when two members of the institution's board of governors sought full disclosure of the accounts of a private committee established to find money for the new extension. At the time, Ms Naughton said she could not release the names of those who had made contributions to the Millennium Wing fund.