The Irish Museum of Modern Art (Imma) will not have money to pay its pensioners at some point this year, its chair has warned, after the Government gave it €275,000 less than it sought to fund payments in the last budget.
Imma chairwoman Ali Curran wrote to Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan in January to say the museum needed €321,000, based on the retirements it expected to occur, to fund pension payments for the year.
It had requested this amount as part of last year’s budget process, but was granted just €45,000.
“Imma does not have available resources to support Imma’s pension obligations beyond the allocation of €45,000, nor has Imma reserves of funding from previous years,” Curran wrote in the letter, released under the Freedom of Information Act.
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She went on to warn that “at some point in 2026 Imma will find itself unable to pay its pensioners due to an absolute lack of resources”. The letter said the timing of that would depend on decisions to retire taken by individual employees.
The museum first forecast this funding requirement in 2019, Curran wrote, adding that “the matter has been brought to the attention of the department on, at least, a biannual basis since 2021”. The board requested that the “matter be addressed and funding secured as a matter of urgency”.
An Imma spokesman said there has not yet been an additional allocation of funds to cover pension costs for this year, but that full funding had been provided last year.
“Imma remains in close dialogue with the department and is hopeful that the full financing requirement will be secured before the end of the year,” he said.
The museum said the situation was not resolved and that a long-term solution would see all pension payments secured and funded through its annual grant from the Oireachtas.
A Department of Culture spokesman said it continues to engage with Imma with regard to fully addressing the matter.
The letter was written shortly after Imma co-signed correspondence to Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers, along with the chairmen/women of the National Library of Ireland and the National Museum of Ireland, flagging similar issues.
That letter, previously reported on by The Irish Times, outlined that the cultural institutions “have been required to fund pension payments and lump sum retirement costs out of our own allocations” as the funds allocated for such payments “do not come close to the actual cost”.
They warned of a “material impact on both the capacity to plan and uphold our fiduciary duties”, adding that when a shortfall occurs, it can have a “very significant impact” on programme budgets and the capacity of the institutions to deliver their mandates.
“Every year we are faced with a difficult process of budget management to the year-end in relation to pension lump sums and in the case of the National Library of Ireland and the National Museum of Ireland, supplementing our pension costs with our pay allocations,” the institutions said.
