National Gallery’s unused €120,000 scanner under scrutiny

The spending of €120,000 on a scanner that has never been used is likely to be examined by the review of how the Department of Arts and Culture supervises the institutions under its remit recently announced by the Minister, Patrick O’Donovan, Government sources say.

Mr O’Donovan was due to brief the Cabinet on the issue on Tuesday when he brings the annual report of the National Gallery to the Cabinet for approval.

The X-ray scanner, purchased by the gallery eight years ago, has never been used because a suitable room for it has not been found.

On his way into Cabinet this morning Tánaiste Simon Harris said that his reaction was “absolute fury” when he heard about the issue.

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He said that he expected the National Gallery to explain itself. He said that three significant issues of overspending – in RTÉ, the Arts Council and now the Gallery – had now arisen in one Government department.

The specialist equipment was intended to be used to examine the gallery’s paintings but issues have arisen, understood to be related to its X-ray capacities, which mean that a suitable room has not yet been found to house it at the gallery’s Merrion Square premises, adjacent to Leinster House.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said it was “incomprehensible” and difficult to explain why “someone would embark upon the purchase of a scanner that they didn’t have a facility to locate it in”.

Mr Martin said it was up to the National Gallery to explain what had happened and people needed to be “accountable for what transpired”.

Speaking on the way into Cabinet on Tuesday morning, the Taoiseach said he was awaiting full details from Mr O’Donovan.

The Fianna Fáil leader said there had to be “a rigorous focus on value for money” and that is why there was a Comptroller and Auditor General and Public Accounts Committee.

“The sooner we establish the Public Accounts Committee to go through forensically with the Comptroller and Auditor General these issues, the better,” he added.

“It does anger people, without question, that expenditures of this type happen with no clear function or rationale for it.

“Of course, it’s taxpayers' money, it belongs to the people, and it has to be spent wisely and with value from money always the key objective in spending that money.”

Meanwhile, Minister for Arts Mr O’Donovan has announced the appointment of the three-person board to examine spending and corporate governance at the Arts Council. The group will be chaired by Prof Niamh Brennan and its other members will be corporate governance expert Margaret Cullen and former senior civil servant John McCarthy.

In a statement, Mr O’Donovan said: “I wish to restore trust and confidence in the Arts Council. The public must be satisfied that the Arts Council’s corporate governance framework is fit for purpose and supports the delivery of its statutory responsibilities. Assurance is also required that the organisational culture of the Arts Council, at all levels, is open and transparent and that it engages appropriately with sectoral stakeholders.”

Earlier, opposition parties called for former minister for arts Catherine Martin to come before an Oireachtas committee to answer questions in relation to spending at the National Gallery of Ireland and the Arts Council.

Labour TD Duncan Smith said it was important for transparency and even if it was just to “clear the minister’s office”.

“Going back to the RTÉ scandal, there were issues in terms of lines of communication between ministers and senior officials in that department,” he said.

Social Democrat TD Gary Gannon said there was precedent for a former minister to come before an Oireachtas committee to answer questions.

“We don’t have powers of compulsion, so that would be up to former minister Martin,” he said. “I just don’t think there would be anything wrong in her actually coming in and just outlining how that oversight occurred.”