Ms Rose McHugh:

I thank the members of the committee for this opportunity to speak to them about my proposed appointment as chairperson of the Crawford Art Gallery. I was appointed to the board by the Minister on 15 March and I am appearing here relatively new to that position. As the members have a copy of my submission, I propose to give them a brief outline of my background, go through my six priorities and take any questions they may have.

In terms of my background, I am a chartered accountant. I am qualified in taxation and I have a law degree and an MBA from University College Cork, UCC. I have spent more than 30 years working at a senior level in the financial and commercial sector. I have significant board experience and I am now a full-time non-executive director. I currently serve on a number of boards, including one of the financial services regulated by the Central Bank, a company listed on the Stock Exchange, leisure companies and voluntary companies. I have served on the boards of semi-State companies. I was chairman of Bord Iascaigh Mhara for two terms and I also served on the board of Bord na Móna. In addition, as part of my role, I served on a number board subcommittees covering the areas of finance, audit, legal, nominations, remuneration and pensions - essentially, the full ambit. That experience together with my legal and commercial experience gives me an excellent understanding and appreciation of corporate governance and I hope that experience will enable me to make a valuable contribution to the corporate strategy and to good corporate governance in the organisation. From what I have seen, it is very well set out in that regard.

I have always had a keen interest in culture and, in particular, in the visual arts. I am from Cork and I live there. I have had no dealings with the Crawford Art Gallery before last month apart from being a regular visitor to it. I have always admired the role it has played in the development of the visual arts in Cork. I look forward to playing my role in leading the Crawford on to the next stage of its journey. That is a brief outline of my background.

I have six immediate priorities and I am sure new ones will evolve. In the month since I have taken on this position, these are what I consider to be the six key priorities. The first one relates to the building. I do not know if any of the members have visited the building. It is a beautiful 300 year old building in a superb location in the city centre. It has great character.

mAs the members have a copy of my submission, I propose to give them a brief background ofmyself and then go through my six key prioirites and then take any quesitons that they may have. I am a Chartered Accountant, qualified In taxation, and have a law degree and an MBA from IJCC.

It is a lovely red-brick building but like any building that is 300 years old, there are issues with it.

The art collection of the Crawford began in 1819 when we received 100 sculpture casts from the Vatican Museum. They have been housed since then in this old Custom House built in 1724. The building was extended twice, in 1884 and again in 2000. It is long overdue a single cohesive plan, which I may come back to later, but the first issue regarding the building is its ownership. In 2006, the building was designated as a national cultural institution. At the time, the building was owned by the former City of Cork Vocational Education Committee, now the City of Cork Education and Training Board, and the plan was that ownership of the building would be transferred to the Office of Public Works, which would do the requisite works. That was in 2006 but since then, unfortunately, we have had the recession and difficult economic times. Ownership of the building remained with the VEC and the transfer never took place. That had knock-on implications in that the Crawfords had to continue doing essential repairs, maintenance, etc. My first key priority is to try to sort out the ownership of the building and have it transferred from the education and training board, ETB, to the OPW.

The second priority relates to the ownership of the collection. We have a wonderful collection of over 4,000 pieces of art, primarily Irish art. It is one of the largest collections of Irish art in the country, mainly 18th century up to modern art, but we have an ownership issue with regard to it. It is split in two in that we own anything acquired after 2006 when we set up our own company but anything acquired prior to 2006 is still owned by the ETB. That is far from satisfactory in terms of various practical issues such as insurance. It insures some pieces while we insure others. We are not getting the most competitive rates. It seems to be a simple enough issue and it is the second priority I would like to have regularised.

My third priority relates to the organisational structure. Last month, the Minister appointed eight new members to the board and, this month, the director of the gallery, who has served the gallery for over 30 years and has done a wonderful job in building up the art collection, is retiring. That leaves two issues for me to deal with from an organisational point of view. First, I need to make interim arrangements for the management of the gallery until such time as we appoint a new director, and I have already done that. Second, I need to make arrangements to appoint a new director. I am working on a job description and talking to the Department about that. Essentially, the third priority relates to the organisational structure.

The fourth priority relates to the strategic plan which, along with the code of practice, is a very important document. From what I can gather, a draft strategic plan was prepared in 2011, on which substantial progress was made, but apparently the Government then announced the potential merger of the Crawford, the National Gallery and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, IMMA. While that did not go ahead, the strategic plan seems to have been put on hold. There is some very good work in that plan but it needs to be updated and moved forward. The fourth priority is to develop a strategic plan. We can do a certain amount at this stage with the board but the new director will have a significant input to the plan. While we can make some progress, we need to bring the director on board before we get into the meat of that issue.

Moving on to operations, from what I have seen in my first month so far, the gallery is very well run, with very good procedures. I was delighted to see the code of practice on the operations director's desk. It was well worn, which means it is used regularly. I am very impressed in terms of the regulations, etc.

The gallery's budget from the Government is quite modest, given what it does. It gets a grant of €1.375 million and from that it runs a number of concurrent exhibitions every year. It does a superb job with what is essentially a limited budget. It generates additional income of approximately €100,000 but its budget is quite modest. To be fair to it, it punches above its weight in that regard.

Two issues struck me immediately with regard to operations. First, there is potential to increase the third party income. There must be many opportunities for companies in the Cork area to be associated with such a prestigious gallery and to help promote and fund exhibitions, which would give us more leeway in terms of doing more exhibitions. We have a number of existing sub-committees in the gallery. We have a finance, audit, legal and artistic policy but I have set up a fourth new committee dealing with building and development.

I will refer to the building again in a moment. With regard to development, it is essentially a matter of considering opportunities for third-party development, hopefully using my commercial skills and the commercial skills and contacts of the other board members to see what we can do in that regard.

Visitor numbers are very healthy. There were approximately 180,000 last year. The number would have peaked at perhaps 200,000 in 2007 but it has recovered a bit. Fewer visitors are coming to Cork. Our budget was cut back, the wages were still the same and repairs and maintenance had to be carried out. The exhibitions were probably cut back slightly as a consequence. I would like to see the number rising to 200,000 again in the short term and, I hope, doubling to 400,000 over the next ten years.

I have asked senior management to consider and raise at the next board meeting the possibility of opening on a Sunday. At present, the gallery does not open on a Sunday. A number of other natural cultural institutions do. It seems a shame that ours does not open on Sunday because that is the day on which people have time off. Obviously, there are cost implications but I have asked the board about this. I hope we will put the arrangement into place in the forthcoming months. The operations are the fifth area on which I want to focus.

I started with the building and I am finishing with the building. The sixth priority for me is the master development plan. As I mentioned, the building is old and far from perfect. While it satisfies the minimum requirements in terms of disability access, etc., it is not perfect. There is a lot that needs to be done to any 300-year-old building. There is a significant capital project required over the next five years. I mentioned I set up a new sub-committee on building and development. The building part is essentially to focus on the building and drive it forward. There is quite an amount of work in that. We are at a very early stage. It will probably be a five-year project. I would like to carry it out on a phased basis so the gallery will remain open throughout. I have set up the sub-committee with some members of the existing board and I have also brought in some external board members with skill sets where I have seen some gaps. There has been some preliminary work done by the OPW in that there has been a strategic appraisal by three different firms of architects. They have all agreed it is possible to extent, upgrade and optimise the existing building, essentially to create a gallery that is of the requisite standard for a national cultural institution. It is probably not at this standard at present. It does need work. I have just come from the National Gallery, where I have had coffee. I do not know whether any of the members have been in the Crawford Art Gallery. Our shop is so small that the security personnel man the shop and remove the takings from it. There is a lot that needs to be done. Our storage is far from perfect. There is a lot that needs to be done. The good thing is that it can be done. I am probably coming onto the board at a good time in that finances are not as constrained as they were. I hope that is a positive.

Those are my immediate priorities. There are a number of others beneath them. I am in the job for only a month so other things will evolve. I have outlined my plan for the six to 12 months. I thank the Minister. The board she has just appointed has an excellent range of skills, which is very helpful. I look forward to working with management over the next five years to deliver a gallery of which we can all be proud and which I hope will be fit for purpose as it faces the next 300 years. I thank the committee for the opportunity to talk to members today. I will be happy to take any questions they have, with the caveat that I may not have all the answers as I have been in my position for only a month. I am getting up to speed as quickly as I can.