Demonstrators protest National Gallery links to direct provision caterer

More than 100 people gathered outside the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) on Friday night to protest its decision to award a catering contract to a company that provides services to direct provision centres.

The Merrion Square gallery recently selected Aramark, which earns several million euro a year from contracts to cater in direct provision accommodation centres for asylum seekers, to run a cafe in the gallery and provide other catering services.

The awarding of the contract, worth €7.5 million over three years, has drawn criticism from both gallery staff and artists.

Three artists, Brian Teeling, Emma Roche and Emily O'Flynn, have requested that their work be removed from display in the gallery, in protest over the decision. Five further groups and artists have contacted the gallery to cancel or postpone upcoming events, such as talks and workshops, a NGI spokeswoman confirmed.

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Aramark, a US multinational company, provides catering services to three direct provision centres, located in Athlone, Clare and Cork.

The NGI has said it awarded the catering contract to Aramark following a public procurement process, as the company scored highest across set assessment criteria.

The protest outside the gallery was organised by the End Direct Provision action group. Lamia Tadjine, a member of the group, said the gallery was a “national institution”, and should be “a place where everyone feels respected”. She felt the gallery’s “decision to side with Aramark doesn’t reflect the values that it should have”.

Sophia Finucane, another member of the group, said she took issue with any company profiting from the direct provision system.

Roisin Ryder, a member of the Resistance Choir, a group set up to protest social injustice, was critical that procurement processes did not take into account “ethical” factors when awarding contracts. “The National Gallery belongs to us … it belongs to the people, including asylum seekers,” she said.

Mr Teeling, an Irish photography artist, was the first to pull his work from the Zurich Portrait Prize exhibition currently showing at the gallery.

Speaking to The Irish Times, he said he wanted “nothing” to do with Aramark, and that awarding the company the contract was “a terrible decision”. Now the contract was signed the gallery’s “hands were basically tied”, he said. The gallery’s response to staff and artists raising concerns had been “spineless”, he added.

In response to artists withdrawing their work, the gallery said it “respects the wishes of individual artists, but regrets the changes to the display”.

More than 30 members of staff wrote to the board of the gallery in early February, expressing their concerns about Aramark being awarded the cafe contract. The cafe was previously run by an Irish company, Brambles.

Staff told the board an association with Aramark was “in direct conflict” with years of work the NGI had put into building relations with asylum seekers and those in direct provision.

Aramark has said it operates to the “highest international standards”, and that policy around direct provision “is a matter for Government”.

The company has said its work in direct provision was “to support residents living in the three centres where we operate, and work diligently to uphold our commitment to treat all clients equally”.