After months of speculation, confusion and conflict about its future location, the Abbey Theatre is now faced with a Government pre-election solution to the problem that raises new concerns and the probability of a very prolonged process.
That there is a need for better accommodation for our National Theatre has never been in question. Whether the remedy prescribed by the Minister for Arts, Ms de Valera, is the most effective one, remains to be proven.
That a decision by Government has finally been taken is welcome; it provides a focus for discussion on the way forward for what is regarded both at home and abroad as one of our greatest cultural assets. If such discussion is allowed to take place, it will have to engage with the economic realities of the Minister's proposal that the best prospect for the Abbey is to proceed with redevelopment of the existing site.
When the total costs of acquiring any adjacent properties required to make this plan work are taken into account, the capital sum will surely exceed the €100 million costs projected by the Minister. A substantial number of separate property negotiations will be necessary, suggesting a process that may well replicate the delays already associated with this project. Suggestions that a new building on the present site might extend upwards and downwards seem hardly feasible, if not incredible.
How precisely the PPP (public/private partnership) idea championed by the Minister for this undertaking would work has yet to be fully explained and the board will need to be assured that what the Minister calls " this radical approach" is, at the end of the day, in the best interests of our National Theatre. The apparent lack of Abbey board involvement in arriving at yesterday's decision is regrettable.
The option of moving to the prominent Carlton Cinema site in O'Connell Street seems to have been dismissed without any convincing explanation being offered. The site is already in the process of being acquired and such a relocation would not take the theatre away from its historical precinct. In fact, what could be a better landmark with which to declare at last a real intention to transform the capital's main thoroughfare. Had this option been proceeded with, the unfortunate prospect of the National Theatre occupying temporary shelter at the time of its centenary celebrations in 2004 might have been avoided.
There is no doubt that the theatre has contributed to its own misfortune; when substantial funding was within reach for redevelopment of the existing facilities, it pushed the notion of moving to a green field site away from the city centre onto the agenda. This provoked a reaction that appears to have moved the issue on to a political agenda that was not in the best interests of cultural concerns or the theatre's cause.