National Gallery accounts disclosure sought

Full disclosure of the accounts of the National Gallery's private fundraising committee, chaired by Mr Charles Haughey until June this year, is being sought by at least two members of the gallery's board of governors. Mr Haughey was chairman of the National Gallery Foundation, the private fund-raising arm of the gallery, from its establishment in 1995 until he stepped down recently. The foundation was set up to raise funds for the £15.5 million Clare Street extension.

The Irish Times has learned that one board member, the chairman of the Commissioners of Public Works, Mr Barry Murphy, has placed the lack of information about the foundation's activities formally on the agenda for the meeting of the gallery's board on Friday next. He has informed a member of the Government during the week of his disquiet about the secrecy surrounding private donors to a public institution. Mr Murphy wants the names of the donors, the amounts, and the conditions attached to their donations, to be disclosed to the board.

Mr Ciaran MacGonigal, the director of the Hunt Museum in Limerick, has threatened to resign from the board of the gallery unless there is full accountability about the donors.

The chairman of the board of governors, Mrs Carmel Naughton, last Tuesday invited The Irish Times to see accounts in the National Gallery at 10.30 this morning. However, when she was informed at 9.20 last night that a report on the matter would be published in this morning's newspaper, she withdrew the offer.

She denied last weekend that any member of the board had raised questions about the accounts of the fund-raising foundation "at the board". Any member who requested information got it privately. Mrs Naughton added: "We can't release the names . . . Ireland is a very leaky country." The National Gallery had private sponsors to the tune of £5 million, she said. She later admitted that "some of the money from a small number of donors" was lodged; they had contracts for the rest of the money with "one or two outstanding, not signed and returned to us".

Meanwhile, three members of the board of governors have been asking questions about the activities of the fund-raising foundation for more than a year. Besides Mr Murphy, who is the accounting officer for the Office of Public Works, and Mr MacGonigal, Professor Michael Herity, president of the Royal Irish Academy, has made the case for fuller information on all aspects of the gallery's accounts to enable members to come to informed decisions.

The Irish Times has established it was proposed last April that the Friends of the National Gallery of Ireland - a separate private company which invites members of the public to subscribe to the gallery - should be restructured. The amalgamation of the Friends company into the National Gallery, both financially and structurally, would enable the gallery to take over the Friends' account.

It was envisaged that the amalgamation of the Friends' account with the gallery bookshop account would enable the bookshop to be excluded from the Freedom of Information Act. The Act came into effect on April 21st last.

Though it was agreed to establish a sub-committee to deal with the restructuring, Mrs Naughton said it was decided not to proceed with the proposal.

The Irish Times has also learned that the National Gallery's property at 90 Merrion Square has been insured as marine cargo - not a Georgian house.