Special feature - Homelessness in Kildare

Every week the Leinster Leader publishes a special investigative and in-depth piece. With five reporters in the newsroom, we each have five weeks to prepare something. This was my most recent piece, and one of those rare occaions when my Simon Community experience comes into play in my day job. I must say I was very impressed with how open, interesting and forward looking George Perry of Kildare County Council was when I spoke to him on it. Although the fact that I revealed my Simon background to him may have had the effect of making him feel less like talking to a reporter and more like talking to a fellow professional - or maybe he's just a good guy:

The picture of homelessness in Kildare in the early months of 2010 are interesting.
There is quite clearly a problem, and an ongoing one at that, but equally, there exists a range of effective services to deal with it.
Kildare County Council sources have said homelessness figures have remained steady throughout the county and that the recession does not appear to have raised the numbers of those seeking assistance.
But by their own admission, their figures are not complete.
In 2007, in their publication ' A Poverty Profile of Co. Kildare', the Council revealed that a total of 206 people presented as homeless that year.
That included 78 women, 110 men and 18 people who were in nine couples. That is the last official published figures on the matter. Council official George Perry has told the Leinster Leader that the numbers haven't changed in the meantime, notwithstanding the downturn in the economy in the meantime.
But the nature of homelessness in Kildare is coloured by virtue of our proximity to Dublin.
Mr. Perry explains: “We export our problem, especially in the north of the county”, noting that there were hostel services available in Newbridge and Athy.
Even the 2007 figures carry the following caveat: “This is likely to be an underestimation of those homeless in Kildare as those who re-present to the service are not included in this overall figure.
“Also, there are likely others whom outreach workers are not aware of and who are not engaging with services.”
All that nothwithstanding, services in the county are quite good.
Mr. Perry himself is the chairman of the county's Homelessness Consultative Forum, a group which include representatives of the local authority, the HSE, Gardai and the hostels which offer accomodation to people who are homeless, such as Michael Garry House in Newbridge and Mount Offaly House in Athy.
That group makes sure that the efforts of all those involved in tackling the issue are targeted in the same general direction.
And in the coming months, a major change is set to take place in the way the various bodies approach the issue.
A new national Government Strategy for dealing with homelessness has identified the regional nature of the problem, and has decided to establish a Regional Forum approach, including Meath, Kildare and West Wicklow.
The Forum will see representatives from local authorities, the HSE, elected representatives, service providers such as the Simon Community and St. Vincent de Paul, the Probation Service, FAS, the VEC and the Regional Drugs Taskforce.
And Kildare County Council has been appointed the lead agency in that new regional forum.
It's an approach Mr. Perry approves of entirely. The best practice solution, for him, is to reintegrate people back into their own community, and to enable them to progress out of homelessness.
Exporting the problem to Dublin, he agrees, helps nobody.
The modern approach to dealing with homelessness starts with a recognition that if the pathways into homelessness are complex, the solutions must be equally complex.
It is now widely accepted that providing a person with a bed and a roof over their head does not solve the problem.
The Simon Community says that homelessness is, in fact, a secondary problem. They say that if a person experiences any three of the following primary problems – poverty, unemployment, family disputes and breakdown, sexual or physical abuse, a background of residential care, experience of prison or the armed forces, drug or alcohol misuse, school exclusion and poor mental or physical health, they are likely to find themselves homeless.
Simon has also identified a number of possible 'triggers' such as leaving the parental home following disputes, marital or relationship breakdown, eviction, widowhood, discharge from the armed forces, leaving care, leaving prison, or a sharp deterioration in mental health or an increase in alcohol or drug misuse.
Mr. Perry said that within Kildare people who are discharged from the armed forces, or retiring from the equine industry, have the potential to be at risk of homelessness.
“They can be institutionalised, and often don't know how to fill their days,” he explained, although he added that both the Army and equine industry was aware of the issue and have taken steps to help.
And the Council has two homelessness outreach workers that work with those who are homelessness.
“They work with people who are homeless, helping them to access the services they are entitled to, and be au fait with them,” Mr. Perry explained.
According to Bernie Geoghegan of Mount Offaly House in Athy, one of Kildare's hostels, there is no 'one size fits all' solution.
“We work with each individual to meet their needs.”
The facility has 13 beds, and is always more than half full. It works with people who are referred to them by the County Council, and offers, she explains, much more than a bed.
“The bottom line is progression. There is no time-frame for a person's stay here, because everybody is different, but there has to be a progression.
“This is basically a rehab facility. People can lose a lot of their skills, so we have classes in things like cookery and art to help them.
“We don't reinvent the wheel – we use whatever is out there in the community.”
Homelessness services in the County have come a long way in so far as it is no longer necessary for anyone to sleep rough.
“There's no need,” Mr. Perry said. “There are enough beds.”
The reason that some people continue to do live rough is possibly linked to the fact that there are no 'wet' hostels in the county. Unlike normal facilities, wet hostels allow people to stay even if they are drunk or are drinking.
There is currently no wet hostel in Kildare, but George Perry told the Leinster Leader that the Council is actively examining the option.
“By its very nature, a wet hostel must be highly supported,” he added.
And when asked if a wet hostel was the only piece of the jigsaw left to prevent people from sleeping rough, he remarked: “Quite possibly.”
Again referring to the 2007 Poverty Profile of the county, of those who were deemed to be homeless, 24 were acommodated in B&B's, eight in a mixture of hostel and B&B's, 44 in solely hostels, two in hotels, one was referred to a unit in Dublin, one was directed to another local authority, three were in private rented accomodation, one, a foreign national, was directed to repatriate, five stayed with a friend or relative and two went into treatment in a residential addiction centre.
However 26 were refused entry to the hostel, one was barred from hostels and three were listed as living rough.
It will be interesting to see the effect of changing homelessness services to a regional basis will have on the figures, and on the final outcomes for the people behind those figures.

Perfect 10 for Audi A5

I was asked some time ago, and somewhat unexpectedly, to start writing car reviews for the paper. This was because I knew "everything" about cars my then-editor said, although I think that was more of a comment on the relative lack of knowledge amongst my colleagues. It was a new thing for me and to be perfectly honest, when I started I sorta had to make it up as I went along. I quickly decided that I would keep the technical details to a minimum and concentrate on what it was that most car consumers are interested in when they go looking to buy a new car. Since then I've started reading the work of other reviewers and that seems to be the universal approach.

This, the four-door version of the Audi A5 is without a doubt the best car I've been handed the keys to since I started:



A perfect 10 for Audi

MAKE AND MODEL: Audi A5, sportback

DESCRIPTION: A four-door hatchback saloon that's actually a sports coupe.

ENGINE: 2 litre TDI (143hp)

OTHER AVAILABLE ENGINES: In Petrol 2 litre (180hp), 2 litre (211hp), 3 litre, Quattro (333hp) and in Diesel 2 litre TDI giving either 143 or 170hp, 2.7 litre TDI giving 190hp or 3 litre TDI with 240hp.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Count for nothing – wait until you drive it, and then....wow!

THE LOW DOWN: You don't expect to use a racehorse to plough a field, and you don't expect to put a towbar on a Ferrari so that you can pull bullocks to the mart.
Therefore when you come across a fairly large four door 2 litre diesel saloon with low emissions and a large family-szed hatchback boot, you have certain expectations.
That it might be stunningly beautiful, great fun to drive, and possibly the best car this reviewer has ever sat into probably isn't on your list of expectations.
Well, it certainly wasn't on the list of this reviewer's anyway. And anyway, that's a cart before horse way of looking at it – but let me explain.
The same day that the Leinster Leader test drove the Audi A5 sportback at Sheehy's of Naas, we had just driven a diesel version of a flagship or another marque brand and despite being extremely comfortable and full of luxurious details and features still felt somewhat underwhelming.
Next we approached the A5 sportsback – a four door version of the beloved ordinary A5 coupe. At first impressions before getting inside, it is a stunningly beautiful machine. From all angles it is muscular and classy – the ultimate in Teutonic engineering and design.
Inside, it appeared initially to be a somewhat plainer, if more user friendly than the previous machine (no we won't be saying what it was!).
But turn the engine and select drive (we drove an automatic, although manual is also available) and push the accelerator.....and enjoy the magic!
We drove the A5 out of Sheehy's, turned right and right again out onto the ring road.
Everything, from the cornering, suspension, braking and steering was sure footed – so much so that even the act of braking could be enjoyable.
And despite have 300 cc less than the other marque car we drove that day, it had better acceleration. The one we drove was the Multi SE with 143hp of sheer grunt, while at the same time only delivering 152 grams of CO2 which will only cost you E302 a year. Audi has another version, the SE, with the same engine that develops 170hp and yet only produces 137 grams of co2 leaving you paying only E156 in car tax.
It will use 6.5 litres of diesel per 100 kms in the city, 4.5 on the open road and 5.2 on average.
Given the size of this car and its speed, the above figures would suggest it was built for a bunch of hippy environmentalists – and yet, for the immature heavy footed amongst us, this is a very fun car to drive.
Dare we say it, the Audoi A5 was not meant for long journeys on comfortable motorways. This car was meant for long journeys on twisty, bendy hills. This is a driver's car.
The 'plainer' and 'easier-to-use' layout of the cockpit was deceptive. This car has as many gismos and features as any other luxury marque car but doesn't feel the need to shout about them.
The contradictions continue when you go to open the boot.
You're thinking, well, this is a slightly enlongated version of the two door coupe; the back seats are generous as coupes go; this is a sports coupe. Obviously the boot should be just about big enough to hold a lady's purse.
Well, no. A set of golf clubs and a child's buggy could fit in it and still leave room for a week's shopping. If you're so minded, you can let down the back seats, and with the boot door opening like a hatchback you can easily fit a lawnmower or two in the back.
In short, this is an extravengtly perfect car, and the first 10 out of 10 the Leinster Leader has ever given.


PRICES RANGE FROM: €42,825 to €71,705

WHO IS IT FOR: Everyone!

MARKS OUT OF TEN:10.

Geraldine Kennedy visit to NUI Maynooth

Geraldine Kennedy, the editor of the Irish Times, spoke to students at NUI Maynooth. She was a guest of the Political and Sociology Society. After a short lecture she took part in a Question and Answer session which revealed an interesting and personable lady. She also had some interesting things to say about the state of journalism today, and in particular about new journalism graduates, which I was once upon a time:


“I didn't want to be sent to any of those soft places - I wanted to be sent Mountjoy because I fancied the idea of meeting Catherine Nevin!”
That was the surprising admission of Geraldine Kennedy, the editor of the Irish Times, when asked if she expected to be sent to jail over the paper's refusal to identify the source of a leak from the Moriarity Tribunal.
Ms. Kennedy was addressing NUI Maynooths Politics and Sociology Society last Wedenesday, April 14, on the issue of press freedom.
In September 2006, she approved the publication of an article in The Irish Times giving confidential details of investigations being made into payments purported to have been made in 1993 to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
And she refused, when requested to by Tribunal, to provide details of the source of that.
She claimed that the documents had since been destroyed. Her refusal caused the Tribunal to seek High Court orders compelling her to provide details of the source.
The case eventually made it to the Surpreme Court where the Irish Times won their case.
“Press freedom is a right,” she told those assembled, although she made the point that many journalists mistakenly believe that it refers to them.
“It's not about them, it's about the public. The public has a right to press freedom. It is the public's right to know, and I make no apology of sticking to that,” she noted.
She spoke briefly about the conflicting roles of politicians and journalists, and how they and others attempt to “get their message out”, much to the detriment of the role of the media.
“We question everything and presume nothing,” she said, adding that the old definition of news being something that somebody somewhere doesn't want you to know remains a good one, she felt.
She spoke of the threat, which has now receded of tougher privacy laws, and admitted that this had been brought on by the excesses of the tabloid media.
“Many politcians or their families have have come a cropper as the hands of tabloid newspapers for prurient reasons in recent times,” she noted.
In a wide ranging discussion afterwards, she admitted that all of society “went along with the flow” when the economy was going well. “And we made decisions thinking it would last forever.
“If the houses weren't for sale, we wouldn't be writing about them,” she said by way of defending the property supplement.
When asked if the Irish Times had considered changing to a compact size she explained that “like all papers we considered it about it five or six years ago but decided not to do it because our readers would be resistant to it – but we haven't closed down the issue.
“We also felt it would change the character of the newspaper.
“The Irish Independent,” she noted, “now has a 60/40 split because many of their readers were resistant to it – so they have the worst of both worlds where they have to produce two newspaper a night.”
At one time the Irish Times did also consider a Sunday edition in the early 1990's. It did not proceed because it was thought it might challenge their Saturday edition.
Ms. Kennedy's own view was that there would have been room for a Sunday edition before the entry of the London Sunday Times into the market. But now she felt that the Sunday market was saturated.
She also recounted her role in the phone tapping scandal in the early 1980's (when the vast majority of her audience wasn't even born).
“It was unusual for me that rather than merely covering the story, I was now part of the story,” she said.
And she spoke of her entry into politics and her disappointment at her early exit after one term.
“I was very lucky to go back into journalism,” notwithstanding the 'decontamination period' she had to endure from writing about politics.
She noted how the coverage offered by newspapers has changed greatly in the past 15 years. Given the 24/7 news culture we now live, people look to newspaper for in-depth analysis of the news rather than necessarily the news itself, she explained.
She added that there is still further change ahead because there is still no viable business model for newspaper websites.
“You couldn't afford to run a newspaper online,” she said, but added that many newspapers were testing a variety of ways to make it pay.
When asked what she looks for in a young journalist, she noted: “I'd never say to anyone to stay away from journalism, although with the recession there aren't many jobs around at the moment.”
The journalism courses in various colleges now are turning out reporters who are competent, “but there's a sameness about them,” she noted. “They all want to be stars within three years!”
She noted that it was getting harder to find the “really talented people who may not have done a journalism course.
“I don't think that it's the only route,” she noted, suggesting that preliminary study in something like science or English might be just as useful.
In answer to a question to whether there was one thing she looked for in a young reporter, she said that she looked for somebody who had made an effort to be involved in their student newspaper, who had made an effort to get published and had good general knowledge and understanding of current affairs and the news of the day.
She also looked to see “what new perspective they could bring to the newsroom”.

Riverbank Arts Centre

This is a story that was published in early September 2008. It was the culmination of about a month's work and interviews. It concerns the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge. I'll say no more.....read on!:


The Riverbank Arts Centre, which closed its doors on Sunday last, August 31, has struggled since its inception.
Since it was announced that Strategic Arts Management, the company that ran it, would cease trading, that four staff members would lose their jobs as a result, and that the centre would close, the Leinster Leader has been investigating the root cause of the issue.
There are two sides, and two perspectives, to this story.
Kildare’s arts community, and some people who have worked at the Centre make up, broadly speaking, one side.
The other side is made up of people who work in Kildare County Council and Kildare’s County Library and Arts Service. It is perhaps best to say at this point that, with a few exceptions, nobody on this side of the debate will comment, despite repeated requests.
All they say is that an announcement is due shortly which will explain the Riverbank’s future direction.
The Riverbank Arts Centre was a Millennium project for Kildare County Council.
It shares the building with the headquarters of the County Library and Arts Service, which was, at the time, a pragmatic way of attracting extra funding to the project.
It was to be run by a manager and that the Board of SAM would act as a management committee to back up that manager.
But that was not SAM’s only role. As well as being a board of management for Riverbank, SAM was also expected to develop arts policy for the county and to be an advisory group on the arts to the County Council.
However the post of County Arts Officer, which according to Lucina Russell, the current incumbent, was established nine years previously in 1991 within the Library service.
“The Arts Act 2003 states that ‘A local authority shall…. prepare and implement plans for the development of the arts within its functional area and shall, in so doing, take account of policies of the Government in relation to the arts’,” she explained, by way of clarification to a previous article by this reporter.
Things were complicated even further by the fact that SAM’s own board included staff from Kildare County Council and the Library and Arts Service.
As a result, there were two organisations with overlapping roles, and half of the board of one was made up of key people from the other.
Inevitably this led to conflict and accusations of undue influence by the local authority in the affairs of SAM – or as the broadcaster, playwright and former SAM member John MacKenna puts it: “Why buy a dog but insist on barking yourself?”
The first manager of Riverbank was an American, Maeve O’Brien. A number of those who knew her said she was an extraordinarily capable person, and that by any measure, Co. Kildare was lucky to have her.
On March 20, 2001 she told the board of SAM that she was resigning. In a letter to the board shortly afterwards she clearly set out her reasons.
“I feel the integrity, responsibility and autonomy of my post has never fully been understood, and more regrettably, respected by some members of the Board. Nor was it ever fully discussed with SAM’s key partner, Kildare County Council, so that a firm foundation of co-operation and a solid working partnership could be established.”
She explained that soon after arriving to take up her position in September 1999 it became clear to her that “both at Board level and in relations with Kildare County Council, the pivotal role of arts centre manager had not been carefully considered before the appointment was made.
“By the spring of 2000 real signs of the emergence of a ‘board within a board’ started to show. On certain issues, especially in the area of the staffing and the role of the Company Secretary and therefore, by extension finance and building management, the independence of SAM, as a decision making body, was becoming deeply compromised.”
In documents seen by the Leinster Leader, it is clear that she identifies the ‘board within a board’ as being County Council employees.
She says that repeated requests by her to discuss the future of the project, “and my attempts at pointing out the complexity of the situation to people, resulted in my position being even more sidelined”.
She adds that she found it “unreasonable that, as the day to day representative of one of the key partners of the project, I was not kept regularly informed, or invited to attend meetings where key decisions about the arts centre were being made – by KCC employees.
“What reasons stand behind this consistently convoluted way of working I truly cannot say.”
At one point in the letter, she says she felt like she had “no employer”, and that she had no forum in which to discuss her concerns about “SAM’s lack of autonomy”.
In her three page letter she says that she was unable to have a “reasoned discussion about my job description and contractual issues, all of which have been fudged by SAM since the summer of 2000 and allowed to be coloured by the highly personalised views of some individuals”.
Most damningly, in the era of corporate-style management of local authorities, she reveals that she “had to ask” if she would be allowed to play a role in recruiting her maternity cover for her job – “a question that would never arise in an enlightened and equitable working environment”.
Her letter ends with the warning: “The problems I have flagged up here, and indeed over the past year, will not go away when I leave. They must be faced up to at some point if the arts centre is to fulfill its purpose and meet the aspirations of the Board and the wider public.”
“Nothing changed. Nothing changed at all,” is John MacKenna’s depressed reply seven years later when these points were put to him.
“In that letter lie the foundations of the problems. They were the same problems and the same personalities,” he said. “There was too much interference.”
He says it was a question of ownership. “My understanding, as a board member of SAM, was that Riverbank was to supposed to be by the people, of the people and for the people, not just part and parcel of a lip service.”
Mr. MacKenna explained that SAM was effectively a tenant in the building, and that they had no control over issues such as what he calls “that bloody restaurant that sat empty for three and a half years”.
He relays a story of when another manager left, the Council closed the Centre, “against the wishes of the majority of the Board”.
“They locked the building on the basis of Health and Safety.”
Health and Safety, he says, became a euphemism that “covered anything Kildare County Council didn’t want. It covered more than St. Bridget’s cloak!”
“I think the fundamental problem was that the Board of SAM was not following their agenda.”
The past seven years have seen ups and downs but in the past 18 months in particular, relations between the two sides went downhill, for reasons that are not entirely clear. An arts consultant, Patricia Quinn was brought in to do a report on the situation.
As is often the case with consultants, they provide an organisation with a way of telling itself unpalatable, but blindingly obvious truths. And in this instance, her report did just that – pointing out that SAM had an overlapping remit with the Arts Service and that if it was going to run the Riverbank, it should think about setting up a separate group to do so.
“Everybody agreed with her findings,” the then chair Brid Connolly told the Leinster Leader. “That SAM really wanted to contribute to the arts policy development in the entire county. Even with this clarification, it wasn’t enough in terms of what the Council wanted from the process.”
However, according to MacKenna, the first people to see the report were Kildare County Council, which rankles with him, because it’s yet another sign that the independence of SAM, which had commissioned the report, was not recognised or respected by the Council.
The resignation earlier this year of the then manager John O’Brien prompted a series of actions by Kildare County Council and the Library and Arts Service, which led directly to the situation Riverbank Arts Centre finds itself in today.
There is a belief that the actions were planned long in advance and that John O’Brien’s resignation gave the Council the opportunity it had been looking for.
Shortly after he gave his notice, Mr. O’Brien, universally acknowledged to have been a very good manager, albeit in difficult circumstances, took a week’s holidays.
During that time, the Leinster Leader understands Kildare County Council staff entered his office and removed a number of documents, including SAM’s chequebook and began making enquiries in relation to the financial health of the organisation. According to Mr. MacKenna and a number of other board members, this included contacting SAM’s bank.
At the time, some board members were very upset and six members of them instructed a solicitor to demand an apology from the Council because the action “could basically suggest that the board had not been administering the finances properly,” one of them said.
“The bank has no problem with the finances of SAM. They’re quite happy,” he asserted.
SAM Chairperson Brid Connolly said that at a board meeting, on Tuesday, April 1, Council officials assured the members that there was no inference of financial impropriety.
“The legal prompt is to ensure that that becomes public,” she explained. The Leinster Leader understands that the legal action remains alive.
A meeting of the board on April 1 was heated, particularly over a Council press statement which asserted that the action was “entirely within the authority of the County Council”.
However by the following week, possibly as a result of the solicitor’s letter, a spokesperson for the Council refused to comment on any of aspect of the matter. That refusal extended to not re-issuing the statement.
The County Council has always said that it was at the request of the board of SAM that an interim manager, Eoghan Doyle, was installed when John O’Brien left.
And they deny suggestions that Mr. Doyle, who also wears the cap of Assistant County Arts Officer, was foisted upon SAM.
As usual it’s a matter of perspective. Which half of the board made the request to Kildare County Council?
In any event, Mr. Doyle was instructed by the board (again, which half?) to advertise for a replacement manager. In a report to the board at their next meeting, May 15, he said: “I do not feel the Arts Centre is in a viable position to advertise for a manger at this time.”
That was the final straw for five of the members of SAM, who resigned. They were Annette McCormack, John MacKenna, Anne Ryan and Frank Taaffe. After chairing the remainder of the meeting, Brid Connolly resigned.
In a strongly worded statement, they explained that they felt they had not option but to go. “To do otherwise would be to act as decoys for the devious and undemocratic policies being pursued in regard to the control of what is supposed to be a centre for the arts for the people of Kildare.
“It is clear to us that Kildare County Council has as its main interest the bringing of Riverbank under autocratic control. Staff morale, audiences and the community count for nothing in this push for total authority.”
The Council issued a statement which rejected the statement as “misleading and materially incorrect”.
During the remainder of the meeting that was chaired by Brid Connolly on May 15, the board of SAM decided to cease trading as and from August 31.
In a statement the remaining members said that the decision was taken “following the wrestling of the board over the exact role of SAM, the mounting debt and the inability of the board for some years to act collectively”.
That statement was faxed to the Leader following a phonecall to this reporter from Breda Gleeson, the County Librarian and a member of SAM, even though Eoghan Doyle’s name was at the bottom of it.
Both sides then sniped at each other for a while. Two weeks later, in the same week that local TD Sean O’Fearghaill called for the Comptroller and Auditor General to investigate the place, John MacKenna noted: “I’m sure they’re (the County Council) delighted it’s
being wound up. They’ll put in a puppet board now and they’ll have full control.”
One of the main bones of contention between the two sides has been the debt in the centre’s finances.
The debt accrued by Riverbank over the course of its life is not particularly substantial, especially in the context of a busy arts centre providing a public service but it is an issue that appears to have exercised the minds of senior officials in Kildare County Council.
Mr. MacKenna says that over the past two years John O’Brien had provided the Board with clear evidence that the debt was being reduced. He says his latest information is that it was about €40,000 for operating costs, and that a figure of €80,000 which has been referred to by some officials, refers to all liabilities and projected costs.
“I see you’re sticking with the figure of €83,000 for the debt at Riverbank,” a senior Council official remarked recently to this reporter during a County Council meeting, presumably a typically roundabout way of saying that the figure may not be correct.
However the figure of €83,318.30 is listed as the total known liabilities for the centre in the report for the board of SAM on May 14 last, a report which bears the name of Eoghan Doyle as its author.
The future of Riverbank is unknown. Through the grapevine the Leader has learned that it is unlikely to reopen before January, and that it is unlikely to feature many of the artistic groups currently associated with it, such as Crooked House Theatre, Kildare Youth Theatre or Fluxusdance.
The fear amongst many is that community arts won’t be welcome, that only more esoteric art will be supported.
“Community is a dirty word for the Arts Council,” John MacKenna told the Leader. “I don’t think they believe that good or great art can come from small communities.
“In a sense it’s an inferiority complex.”
He felt Riverbank should be supporting “what Peter Hussey is doing” - which brings us nicely up to date.
As this article was being completed last Friday afternoon, the news that appears on the front page of this week’s Leinster Leader broke.



What it was that broke was the news that a youth theatre group run by the aforementioned Peter Hussey, one of life's gentlemen, was being evicted from the Arts Centre. The group had done trojan work, not simply as a theatre group, which was only ever an elaborate front. Its real work was as youth suicide prevention group. On both levels, it was wildly successful. Kildare Youth Theatre, as it is called, has since set up an alternative arts centre across the road from the Riverbank, and despite not having the budget or the profile of the Riverbank, it has quickly developed into the artistic heart beat of Newbridge.

I should say, and I was very gratified to hear it at the time, that a senior County Council official, who is and was very familiar with the issue, told me soon after we published the above article, that in the context of their refusal to be quoted in the article, they could not fault it in anyway.

This is a story I ran with on December 9:

“Kildare County Council has gone out of its way to avoid saying what the problems were” with the Riverbank Arts Centre.
That was the astonishing admission by Charlie Talbot last Wednesday, December 3 at a meeting of Kildare Area Committee meeting.
This newspaper spent a number of weeks in August of this year researching a lengthy article on how and why the Riverbank found itself in the position it did. Half of its board of management had resigned earlier in the summer. The remaining half’s only decision of note was to wind itself up by the end of August.
At the time, it was clear that the County Council in general, and Library and Arts Service employees in particular were loathe to speak about Riverbank.
However, it comes as a surprise to learn that there was official policy on the matter.
Mr. Talbot gave two reasons for the policy. The first had to do with legal reasons. The second was that “it’s time for us all to move on”.
He made his remarks during a discussion on the cost of the “Open for….ideas” project.
He had been asked by Cllr. Fiona O’Loughlin what the “operational budget” had been. He was unable to answer the specific question, but said that to date, E41,000 has been spent.
Cllr. O’Loughlin expressed her surprise at the amount of money involved, and that it didn’t appear as if a specific budget had been put in place.
Noting that the figure did not include staff costs, she remarked that the actual amount was probably a lot more.
Mr. Talbot explained that he wasn’t “intimately involved in the project”, but he justified the cost on the basis that it was important to facilitate any and all who wished to partake “in the process”.
“It’s important because the previous Riverbank did not work. We believe it can and will succeed this time.”
“How can we define it as a failure,” Cllr. O’Loughlin asked. “It was extremely successful in many ways. There was a high level of interaction with the public.”
This was the case, she said, notwithstanding the fact that there were also problems there.
“And Kildare County Council has gone out of its way to avoid saying what those problems were” with the Riverbank Arts Centre, Mr. Talbot said. “There were problems, and they will be resolved.”
Referring to those who were on the board of Strategic Arts Management (SAM), the organisation which ran the Riverbank, he said he had no doubt they were all “committed, enthusiastic and able people. I’ve no wish to denigrate any of them”.
Cllr. O’Loughlin said she thought it was time for honesty in terms of learning the lessons from the centre. “What we’re doing is farcical. We need to be clear about the problems. How else can we proceed?”
Mr. Talbot explained why the Council had made its decision. He said he had read a letter in one of the local newspapers recently where the author had said that it was time for “forget about the past” and that there was no “point in going back over who was right and who was wrong”.
“It seems extraordinary that a body like Kildare County Council, at a time when it is cutting budgets and staff, should commission and oversee a review which, rather than having a budget, has a blank cheque,” broadcaster and playwright John MacKenna told the Leinster Leader.
Mr. MacKenna is a former board member of SAM and a trenchant critic of the Council’s role generally in Riverbank and specifically in the demise of SAM.
“It's even worse that the money spent so far, in excess of E41,000 in just two months, plus whatever is yet to be spent, plus the cost of the arts consultant and her assistant, would have kept the sacked staff of Riverbank in employment for a year,” he noted.
“The KCC officials who are overseeing this review are the very people who lectured the Board of SAM on the need for belt-tightening at Riverbank. Yet E12,000 has been spent on advertising alone for the review process and all in a two-month period.
I'd really like to know what the Arts Council thinks of these figures - the Arts Council logo appears on every Open for Ideas poster.
“What Kildare County Council is doing - and remember this process is not over yet and will cost more - is irresponsible, outrageous and insulting to the sacked staff, the users of Riverbank and the people of Kildare.
“At a meeting in Athy on Wednesday last (December 3) we were told by the Council management that they couldn't guarantee to sign a E10 a year lease for a community arts centre there because of possible financial demands, yet they can spend more that E41,000 on a publicity exercise.
“Something is rotten in the glass menagerie that is Aras Cill Dara.”
On the Council’s policy of not commenting on the problems at the Arts Centre he noted: “Not for the first time, Kildare County Council has floated innuendo as an excuse for its actions.
“If this hugely expensive review is a serious undertaking, and not simply window dressing, then all of the facts should be in the public arena.
“What the Council has done, again, is to cast a slur on those who worked in Riverbank.
“Kildare County Council should put up or shut up on this issue and stop speaking out of both sides of its executive mouth.
“Is this a full review or is it simply an exorbitantly expensive justification for the sacking of four people?”



And then on January 15, 2009 I was invited to attend an extraordinary meeting....which led to the following article:


There has been a call for Kildare County Council to explain what it believes went wrong with the Riverbank Arts Centre.
“Enough time has elapsed,” sculptor Annette McCormack, a former board member of Strategic Arts Management (SAM) the body that ran the centre has told the Leinster Leader.
She was one of three former board members who met with local media last Thursday, January 15.
Along with John MacKenna and Anne Ryan, she was a member of the ‘community’ side of the board, who resigned in controversial circumstances last year.
Their comments are backed up by another former board member, Frank Taaffe.
At the time of the controversy, several of them were reluctant to speak about it, but with the passing of time, their thoughts have crystallized on certain matters.
From the discussion with them it’s clear that a sense of mutual suspicion was created between the community and the County Council sides of the board of SAM, probably as a result of their different perspectives on art.
“It’s not entertainment,” Anne Ryan explained. “It’s about creating active citizenship, citizens who can offer a critique of their world.”
In other words, it’s all about thinking outside the box, which is probably anathema to the bureaucratic culture of a County Council which often involves coming up with ever more elaborate and Kafkaesque boxes to think inside.
“We saw the place as a centre for artistic regeneration, around which there would be lots of activity,” Anne says. “They wanted to define the arts within the workings of a bureaucratic public body.”
John MacKenna noted that there “was an antipathy to the notion of kids being there after 5pm. The place has a nine to five mentality”.
It can’t be denied that with some strong personalities thrown into the mix, the mutual suspicion graduated over the years to a degree of hostility.
And matters came to a head when the then manager John O’Brien resigned last year and went on a week’s holidays. Representatives of the Council entered his office, removed the company chequebook, changed the locks and contacted the company’s bank.
“If you look at all of those events,” John MacKenna points out, “there is a clear inference of mismanagement or that the books were being fiddled by the board or by John.”
From talking to the three of them, it’s clear that this still rankles with them, and a legal action on the matter is still pending.
“I was insulted and embarrassed by the action initiated by Kildare County Council,” Athy based solicitor and historian Frank Taaffe adds in a statement.
“The Council subsequently sought to row back on this action but did not acknowledge for its wrongdoing or to apologise.
“Kildare County Council (and in this context the entire Council must take responsibility for the action or inaction of its officials and its representatives on the Board) has, over the years failed to exercise, responsibility, its role as a major stakeholder in SAM.”
Ms. Ryan said the board members were adamant that the plight of the four Riverbank employees who lost their jobs is the single most important issue to them.
They are particularly annoyed that those jobs should be collateral damage in the battle for control of the arts centre.
“We wouldn’t like to give the impression that we’re bitter about this,” Annette McCormack says. Instead, they say they are disappointed and baffled.
In an extraordinary admission at an area committee meeting before Christmas Council spokesman Charlie Talbot said that the Council had “gone out of its way to avoid saying what the problems were” with Riverbank.
“Enough time has elapsed,” Ms. McCormack says. “If they have something to say, none of us is afraid to hear it.”
Frank Taaffe has no doubts on the matter. “The shabbiness of the County Council’s involvement in SAM is equalled only by its failure to realise that within its own ranks lie the cause of the problems which from the onset has beset the Riverbank Centre,” he says.
The members who spoke to the Leader are galled by the amount of money spent on the ‘Open for…..Ideas’ consultation process, not least because of the constant arguments they had with the Council over money.
“If they have a County Arts Office, why do we have a consultant?” Anne Ryan asked.
“At a time when money was an issue, five people were taken into the arts office,” John MacKenna explained.
They fear that the reincarnated Riverbank will feature a lot of what they call “the soft end” of the arts, such as workshops for children.
“Children don’t argue with you about the theory, they just cut out the shapes,” John MacKenna noted. “There won’t be the same richness,” Anne Ryan predicted.
Despite everything, the three remain optimistic about the future and they particularly hope the four people who lost their jobs will get them back.
And, with their tongues jammed firmly in their cheaks, they’ve offered their services to the new board. “We’ll cut out the shapes and stick them together,” MacKenna jokes. “We’ll even make the tea!”

I don't know why other media seems to have missed this one......

I don't know why the rest of the media appears to have missed this one. The Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin resigned just before Christmas last, but it was only formally accepted by the Pope last Thursday, April 22.

I could be wrong but in the statement he issued that day the former Bishop became the first senior church man to give his totally honest and straightforward view of the whole affair. In fact he went so far as to say that the Church's actions could have been described as unchristian. For some bizarre reason, the import of his comments were missing from the coverage of the resignation. Most of the other media outlets appeared more interested in Cardinal Brady's comments on him.

Anyway, below is a bit that I wrote for our editorial.

Having resigned, at the age of 73, from the position of Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Jim Moriarty knows his career holds no further prospects for advancement.
He is left in a position of having nothing to lose and is consequentially entirely free to speak his mind, something his still ambitious former colleagues will never do.
Having set the tone last December 23 when he admitted he “should have challenged the prevailing culture”, in his statement last Thursday he continued with what must be, for many, uncomfortable analysis.
He explained that when he offered his resignation, he had hoped it would honour “the truth that the survivors have so bravely uncovered and opens the way to a better future for all concerned”.
“The truth is that the long struggle of survivors to be heard and respected by church authorities has revealed a culture within the Church that many would simply describe as unchristian.
“People do not recognise the gentle, endless love of the Lord in narrow interpretations of responsibility and a basic lack of compassion and humility.
“I believe, as I said at the recent Vatican gathering 'that the goal should be a new fellowship; a deeper sharing of the mission that transcends the kind of clerical culture that led us here'.”
Put another way, the absolute power enjoyed by the church going back to the days of Archbishop McQuaid has corrupted the church so absolutely that it has moved as far as possible away from the fundamental basic principals it claims it was founded to promote.
Or as journalist Mary Rafferty said about the Murphy Report the day it was published: “What it shows us is that the plain people of Ireland know the difference between right and wrong, and the clergy don't.”
The church is now, and not for the first time, an organisation under siege, and has responded to that, again not for the first time, by closing the shutters. That bodes ill for the church.
In his statement last Thursday, Jim Moriarty quoted the former police ombudsman in Northern Ireland Nuala O'Loan, who called for “an open, transparent, accountable Church... valuing each person as made in the image of God”.
The church doesn't do transparency. For instance almost two years ago the Vatican issued a dictat to all bishops on how to deal with child sex abuse cases. It ended with an instruction (in Latin so that nobody born in the latter half of the 20th century who had not spent time in a seminary would understand it) that such cases were to be reported to the Vatican, but not the civil authorities.
And last Thursday when a spokesperson for the Catholic Communications Office was asked by the Leinster Leader if there was any reason floating around for why it took 17 weeks and a day for the Pontiff to accept the resignation, she replied without hesitation or equivocation: “We will never know”.
There was no attempt to bluff - no “well, I'll get back to you one that,” or “his Holiness was busy”, or “things move slowly in the Vatican”. Just a straightforward “We will never know”.
How's that for openness and transparency?
For all Jim Moriarty's failings, it may be that the Church has lost the the man it needs most.