There have been no winners, only a mounting toll of losers, in the saga of resignations and recrimination at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. A number of individuals have suffered, personally and perhaps professionally, and the institution itself must now surely find its reputation in need of some repair.
The position of director has been vacant since its last incumbent, Declan McGonagle, departed last April in the wake of a public dispute that brought only the wrong kind of publicity to an institution that was about to celebrate its 10th anniversary and should have been enjoying its status and achievement.
The goal of what has been attempted at IMMA was described in direct terms by Senator Maurice Manning in the Senate last week as "trying to shake-up the museum". While the handling of the strategies to achieve this may be questionable and at the core of the current difficulties, such an objective is not an undesirable one.
The position that Dr Brian Kennedy found himself in might well have caused him to regret ever considering putting his name forward for the directorship. He appears to have been almost on the point of securing that role but ended up rejecting that possibility in the midst of the acrimony over the selection process. In that event he decided to remain on in his post as Director of the National Gallery of Australia.
Yet, despite the disagreements that have arisen over the conduct of this process, and differing perceptions of key decision-making meetings, it has emerged that there is a broad body of opinion with high regard for Dr Kennedy's expertise and belief in his ability to do the job that is required at IMMA. Of the five-person interview panel, three were clearly in favour of giving him the position. The museum's board voted by seven to two to invite him to accept it. Other voices have expressed confidence in his ability.
It is correct that the Minister for the Arts should adhere to a policy of non-intervention in such matters, but hardly appropriate that in this instance she granted a hearing to those who dissented from the view that Dr Kennedy should be installed as director, but not to those who supported it.
The key issue now, of course, is the future of the museum. A former chairman of the Arts Council, Ciaran Benson, in a letter to this newspaper, wrote of a "desperately needed opportunity" having been missed. But does this have to remain the case? If there was, and is, a consensus of opinion that believes Dr Kennedy is the right choice - and one member of the interview panel, Mr David Ross, former director of the prestigious Whitney Museum, has made the case in a letter to the Minister - surely a course of action should be taken to persuade him to change his mind. A task that the new chairman, Eoin Mc Gonigal, SC , is no doubt well capable of.