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THE COLLECTION of contemporary art owned by Anglo Irish Bank should be opened up to the public, who are now its ultimate owners, the Labour Party has said. Labour arts spokeswoman Mary Upton said the bank’s collection was hung, for the most part, in its corporate headquarters on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin.

“Anglo Irish Bank was a significant patron of the arts when money was no object and, in the years before it collapsed, amassed a significant collection of contemporary art,” she said. “Shamefully, however, there is virtually no public access to the building, which means the people who ultimately own the works of art, the people of Ireland, can never actually get to see them.”