Holding the purse strings

London architects Mathew Bedward and Chris Gregory of Geoffrey Reid Associates, Portland Place, have won the prestigious architectural competition to design the new headquarters of the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands at Islandbridge. Problem is, the way things are going there may be nothing to build, because the standoff between the Department of Arts and the moneybags in the Department of Finance continues. Finance won't release the £40m needed to erect the first purpose-built government department in 70 years. The scenario resembles the competition to design a taoiseach's residence on the site of the old Papal Nunciature in the Phoenix Park 20 years ago. The winners were announced with much brouhaha, but the governments of those days - and there were several - decided it was all too expensive and nothing happened. There were more than 70 entries for the Arts building from all over the globe. Of the six shortlisted, three were Dublin-based - Gilroy McMahon, DeBlacam Meagher and McCullough Mulvin, two British including the winner, and one from New York, Roisin Heneghan and Shih-Fu Peng.