Dr. Olive Braiden:

-----went on for a year and a half. We had to get agreement on many issues on this appointment and we were going over and back all the time, and a lot of it was done on the phone. We were very happy with the sanction letter. We considered that we complied exactly with the sanction letter. We discussed it. Mr. Ó Donnchú was on the interview panel.

There is a difficulty when bringing in somebody from abroad for a position on a short contract of five years.

We believed it was very important to get a candidate with international experience for the National Gallery of Ireland. We were very pleased to have found somebody but, of course, we had to see that that person was not worse off than an Irish person would be.