New chairs at the Table

As Eithne Healy begins her term as chairman of the Abbey, the 'hatchet-burier' talks to Victoria White about the controversy over the new theatreMichael O'Reilly is the new chairman of the National Gallery board. And, hetells Robert O'Byrne, he doesn't care if you've never heard of him

'So will the Abbey and the Arts Minister's department now walk hand in hand on the question of the building?" "Well", says Eithne Healy quickly, "They have to." The new chairman of the Abbey, whose appointment was made public this week, is a hatchet-burier. If she's successful, she'll leave enough hatchets in the rubble of the old Abbey building to make it a heritage site.

She acknowledges that the issue of the new Abbey building dominates and is determined to put the controversy of the past behind her. The public division between de Valera and the Abbey about the present site? Over.

She quotes the Minister as having said, when she told the Abbey of the Cabinet decision that the theatre should stay on its present site: "The process now starts". As far as Healy is concerned, "the process" began when the Office of Public Works moved in to study the Abbey's present site six weeks ago: "I have confidence in the Minister, confidence in the Secretary of the Department, Philip Furlong. I don't think there's anyone who doesn't want this to work." She expects there will be a clear plan within six months.

She says she hopes the OPW will look at the question of buying adjoining sites. And she admits she is excited that members of the public have been interested enough to write to this newspaper recommending the Carlton Cinema site. She obviously believes that whatever happens will be what's best for the Abbey.

As an Abbey board member, she voted for the Grand Canal Dock site, a decision which plainly turned the stomach of the Taoiseach. "At the time," she says, "there was no talk of buying adjacent buildings. It was building on the site and going up. Then came the offer of the site. I would defend the fact that we went and looked at it. I felt we must be looking at the city in 15 years' time, building for your children. We were talking about a landmark building with water frontage."

Former chairman James Hickey has criticised de Valera because she knew of the board's decision to opt for the Grand Canal Dock site for three months, and either did not communicate it to the Taoiseach, or did not communicate the Taoiseach's response to the Abbey. Healy says of the Minister: "I wouldn't say she did it deliberately." Asked if the Abbey should have talked to the Taoiseach directly, she says: "Possibly." She adds: "With hindsight, we should have talked to the Minister again. Made sure we were all on the same wavelength."

Healy has worked with the Minister on the Arts Council and is currently on the board of the National Museum. They obviously have a good relationship. Healy says she has no Fianna Fáil connections, but she was a ministerial appointment to the Abbey board and she has had four other Government appointments in her time: to the Arts Council, the National Museum, the National Millennium Committee and Temple Bar Properties.

Her husband, Liam Healy, is a former chief executive of Independent Newspapers, now semi-retired. She readily agrees that this has put her in line for board appointments, because "people would know Liam" and "of course, you're moving in certain circles".

However, her personal commitment to theatre is not in doubt. She trained as a drama teacher, worked with the National Youth Theatre, sat on the boards of TEAM and Opera Theatre Company, and worked for 15 years with the Dublin Theatre Festival, leaving after a three-year term as chairman. She remembers: "Myself, Tony Ó Dálaigh and Phelim Donlon - we would have died for the festival."

It's the kind of absolute commitment to the job she thinks the Arts Council director Patricia Quinn has. She was on the Council when Quinn was appointed, and has been stunned by her success in putting the arts on the political agenda: "It's phenomenal, phenomenal." The new Arts Plan has made Healy take on her new appointment with confidence.

It wouldn't be unfair to call the Arts Council's historical relationship with the Abbey "dire". Is another hatchet rubble-bound?

"It's a new start," says Healy. No, she doesn't know why the Abbey doesn't have a three-year funding agreement, but she is keen to get one. She is not fully committed to the idea, once strongly advocated by the Abbey, that it should be funded directed by the Minister's department as a national institution, rather than by the Arts Council: "In some ways, it's safer this way," she says. "Governments change. That's another way of saying I trust the Council."

Strengthening the Abbey as a business might go some way towards getting that three-year commitment: "They're running the Abbey very well, but they haven't managed to bring in any other income to speak of. The Abbey is a fantastic brand. I was in New York when Patrick Mason did his fantastic deed with Lughnasa."

Then again, Friel did the first "deed" with Lughnasa. I suggest to Healy that this year the Abbey has put on the stage three new plays which were just not ready. She is cautious, but allows: "With the benefit of hindsight, I'd say, should we be doing so many new plays? That's the artistic director's preserve - but I can have an opinion."

She says she has known Ben Barnes since her National Youth Theatre days: "I know his integrity, he is so ambitious for the Abbey. Everything hasn't worked, but I think overall he has done a good job."

When she feels daunted about her new job, she concentrates her thoughts on the "family" of the Abbey: "There are amazing people in there".

Initial public response to last week's news that Michael O'Reilly was elected chairman of the National Gallery of Ireland's board of governors and guardians might be "Michael who?"

If so, O'Reilly - who has headed the gallery's finance and organisation committee for the past few years - is untroubled. "It doesn't matter at all," he says. "I'm here to do a job, not to be a personality."

In fact, a glance over his curriculum vitae demonstrates an impressive, even daunting, range of abilities and activities for a man not yet aged 50. Born in Cork, he was called to the bar after college and then embarked on a career as a tax consultant before qualifying as a solicitor specialising in commercial law. For much of the past decade and a half, he has worked in the asset finance business but during the 1990s also found time to act as a backroom strategist for Fine Gael, the party responsible for his appointment to the National Gallery's board in 1997. Married with three children, he also serves on the board of the Irish Hospice Foundation and two years ago set up his own commercial outlet in Dublin, the Lemonstreet Gallery, which specialises in contemporary Irish and international work on paper.

Before opening his gallery, he discussed the matter with former NGI chairman, Carmel Naughton, in case it might be thought "there was any potential conflict of interest".

In fact, the Lemonstreet Gallery's concerns are entirely different from those of the national institution and reflect O'Reilly's personal tastes, which are otherwise expressed through what he describes as "a very modest collection" of Irish art. Among current practitioners in this country he particularly admires are John Shinnors, Dorothy Cross and Hughie O' Donoghue. Of O'Donoghue, he remarks: "I think his show in the Rubicon Gallery last October was the most exciting thing over the past year; his painting seems to be the antithesis of contemporary self-referential art."

O'Reilly is not much given to self-reference and this helps to explain why, at least until now, his name has been little-known outside certain artistic circles. This seems unlikely to continue, given the high profile of his predecessor.

O'Reilly is quick to pay tribute to Naughton's term as the NGI's chairman. "Carmel's time was, and will be seen as, a seminal period in the life ofthe gallery; it was her unique flair and energy, and her dogged persistence that resulted in the Millennium Wing being delivered pretty much on budget and only a little behind time - and it has been a spectacular success."

With the opening of that wing, it might appear that the gallery, along with its staff, board and chairman, would settle down quietly for a few years' respite. But this will not be the case: between now and the end of 2005, the NGI's older structures, as well as its Merrion Square forecourt, are to undergo a complete refurbishment estimated to cost €36.6 million. As O'Reilly notes, this sum, which will come from State funds, is greater than that spent on the millennium extension.

O'Reilly expresses concern that the new wing and its facilities might overwhelm perceptions of the gallery's primary purpose. He refers to a document produced by the board two years ago in which the NGI's mission is declared as being "to display, conserve, manage, interpret and develop the National Collection; to enhance enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts and to enrich the cultural, artistic and intellectual life of present and future generations".

Despite the gallery now having an expanded commercial division and a temporary-exhibitions policy in the millennium wing, "I'd never want people to think we're becoming some kind of entertainment centre. The core of the NGI is the collection and as far as the board and I are concerned, the aesthetic of the gallery comes first and last. In between, you have to know about how to deliver an aesthetic experience in the manner most appropriate to our times."

Making the core collection more familiar to a greater audience is evidently an item on O'Reilly's agenda. He speaks of a new NGI website - "I expect it to be the best museum website anywhere by next year" - which will help visitors better to plan their time in the gallery. He also speaks of the importance of developing "a more public service orientation, with more highly developed public relations skills.

"For me, it's very simply about creating a good visitor experience for people coming to the gallery."

At least for his first few months as chairman, O'Reilly intends to be as actively engaged with the daily minutiae of running the NGI as was Naughton. There is, however, one difficulty ahead, which is that his term on the board officially expires in mid-June. "All the potential candidates for the chairmanship had terms expiring at some point during this year," he explains. "The board did consider this matter carefully and in the end its members decided to elect the person of their choice. After that, it's in the hands of the minister."

Of course, given that a general election will take place between now and mid-June, who the decision-making minister might be remains a matter of speculation. O'Reilly and his fellow board members can only hope it is someone sympathetic to the policies - if not the politics - of the NGI's new chairman.