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!”