The Department of Arts was first alerted to problems regarding the installation of a controversial scanner purchased by the National Gallery of Ireland more than three years ago.
The X-ray scanning machine valued at €124,805, which is used to inspect valuable works in an unintrusive way, has lain idle for almost a decade because no suitable room to house it has been found. It requires a lead-lined room due to the risk posed to humans from the radiation it produces.
The department said on Wednesday it had received a report on the issue from the National Gallery four years ago.
“In 2021, the gallery submitted a report on the matter to the department and advised of efforts then under way to resolve the issue. At that time the focus remained on the possibility of finding a room within the premises into which lead lining could be installed,” it said.
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“Following further examination of the issue by the current management team in the NGI it has more recently been decided to move to using an X-ray cabinet”, it added.
The department also said that following an examination of its files, there was “no record of a written submission to (former arts) minister Catherine Martin or her special advisors on the issue of the X-ray machine”.
The gallery did not answer questions about to whom it had sent the report on the X-ray machine in 2021 and whether it had briefed the Minister at the time.
In the gallery’s annual report for 2023, which was published on Wednesday by the Oireachtas, the Comptroller and Auditor General refers to spending on the X-ray system as “ineffective expenditure”.
The report said that in November 2017, the gallery purchased an X-ray system valued at €124,805 as part of its digital investigative imaging project, which was funded by the Department of Arts and Culture under its Creative Ireland’s Digitisation Scheme.
The report said this system was essential to reinstate a facility that supported the safe examination of the gallery’s art collection.
“Since 2018, the gallery has worked with the Office of Public Works (OPW) to locate a suitable space for the X-ray room. However, issues arose with the room’s load-bearing capacity due to the lead lining required for the system. A tender was issued in November 2019, but the only bid received was non-compliant.
“Alternative options, including off-site locations or waiting for the next phase of the master development plan were considered. The gallery is now exploring the use of the X-ray machine as a mobile unit on-site, in collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with the system expected to come into use in 2025,” it said.
Meanwhile, Minister for Arts and Culture Patrick O’Donovan said no more money would come from the public purse to resolve the issue. He said the gallery will use its own resources to bring the scanner into use this year, eight years after its purchase.
The Minister questioned why the gallery bought an expensive piece of equipment before deciding where it was going to be placed, given its specialised requirements.
“That seems to be the biggest issue,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
He also questioned why the machine, described as “fundamental to its workings” by the art gallery, would sit on a pallet for eight years.
The gallery had a priceless collection and “people would accept the need for equipment to be used to restore, maintain and conserve some of our national collection,” he said.
“However, to have it bought and not used, literally sitting on a pallet in a downstairs room is something that really, you know, is not acceptable,” he said.
“It seems to me that this was a case of really, really poor project management. You wouldn’t buy a horse without having stables.”
The gallery was in a historic building so there were many floors that would not have been capable of “holding up an instrument of this scale” he said, adding that it has an “ionising radiation source”, which poses a risk to the operator.
“It has to operate under an EPA licence. People have to be properly trained to use it.”
All of these matters should have been clarified before the machine was purchased, said Mr O’Donovan.
When asked about reports the gallery was now planning to locate the scanner in a moduiar cabin, the Minister said he had not been informed of such plans, and that any moves to find an appropriate location for the scanner would not be funded by his department.
The only role of the Office of Public Works (OPW) was to provide advice to the gallery as the OPW owned the building, he said.
