Arts community: The legacy of former taoiseach Charles Haughey will lie in the rich artistic and cultural life he helped foster in Ireland, Arts Council chairwoman Olive Braiden said yesterday.
The artists' tax exemption which he set up in 1969 "was one of the most enlightened pieces of legislation ever put in place", she said, adding that the exemption has made a major contribution to creative arts in the Republic.
With his avid interest in works of art, Mr Haughey recognised the difficulties for struggling artists and in 1981 he put measures in place to support them which led to the setting up of Aosdána, the affiliation of creative artists, Ms Braiden said. "Mr Haughey is also credited with the removal of VAT on books and for his interest in preserving the built environment, investing in the Temple Bar area of Dublin, and opening, in May 1991, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Kilmainham."
She pointed to the refurbishment of the 18th century State Apartments at Dublin Castle and the offices at Government Buildings, which now represent, "as a signature piece of architectural restoration, the Irish Government in national and international media reports".
This year's Booker-winning novelist, John Banville, said: "Others, and there will be many of them, will point to Charles Haughey's sins, which, heaven knows, were also many.
"Yet he had, however dimly, perhaps even murkily, a vision of some kind of glory - let's make him smile and call it gloire - though the price of that vision was to prove costly, for individuals, for the country, and for himself." He said Mr Haughey did seem genuinely to want to recompense the arts and artists for the State's shoddy treatment of them in the past.
The artists' tax exemption and the founding of Aosdána will ensure that at least one quarter of his escutcheon remains forever untarnished, he added.
Poet Paul Durcan said: "He was no petty man. He was in the tradition of Cardinal Newman; enlargement of the human soul was what he was all about. Hence his practical engrossment with architecture, literature and art. Personally, he was extraordinarily thoughtful."
Painter Louis le Brocquy commented: "As long as I remember, Charlie Haughey has been a constant and imaginative friend of art and artists. With Anthony Cronin by his side, he gave us artists both recognition and help in creating Aosdána. Good to his word to me, he alone gave us an Irish Museum of Modern Art, now under the inspired directorship of Enrique Juncosa. But most of all Charlie gave us artists his friendship and concern. We do not forget."
Dermot McLaughlin, chief executive of Temple Bar Cultural Trust, said Mr Haughey's vision for Temple Bar has been fully realised and today the area is brimming with artistic and cultural activity.
One of the last interviews Mr Haughey gave was to Vera Ryan in Abbeville in 2002, for her book Movers and Shapers - Irish Visual Art 1960-2000. "I think he agreed to this interview because of the nature of the project, which he suggested was slightly to rehabilitate him. He stressed supporting and sustaining individual creativity," she said.
