Centenary year clouded by cutbacks and disputes

Background: In what should have been a crowning glory for the National Theatre, its 2004 centenary year descended into an annus horribilis with falling box-office receipts leading to cutbacks and disputes.

Against a backdrop of uncertainty over its relocation plans, the theatre has stumbled from one financial crisis to the next, culminating in this week's discovery that its deficit is twice what had been forecast.

Criticism will be levelled at the departing management team, which failed to put the Abbey on a secure financial footing at a time when the economy was booming.

But its task was not helped by the Government's decision to cut its funding to the arts sector in 2003, a move which left the theatre with a €700,000 shortfall a year before embarking on its ambitious centenary plans.

The first signs of trouble came last June when the theatre's artistic director, Ben Barnes, postponed two of its productions for last year. Four months later management admitted that the theatre faced a major deficit which would require the shedding of a third of its staff, a total of 30 jobs.

Shareholding council members of the theatre reacted angrily, tabling a motion of no-confidence in Mr Barnes. Having flown back for an emergency meeting from Australia, where he had been touring with an Abbey production, he comfortably survived the motion but not without further acrimony.

In the first of a series of efforts to address the financial crisis, a restructuring working group, chaired by Des Geraghty, was established. It recommended last October that the board undertake an immediate review of its management structures.