Skip to main content
Normal View

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 4 Jun 1980

Vol. 321 No. 10

Adjournment Debate. - National College of Art and Design.

The matter before us arises, as I understand it, from the need for additional accommodation for Members of this House. The premises of the National College of Art and Design in Kildare Street are in a situation which, from our point of view, is very valuable because we are very much pressed for space. We appreciate the concern of the Government and the Taoiseach that we should be adequately accommodated and the efforts being made in that respect. However, it is my duty not just as a Member of this House but as someone who must be concerned about the interests of people outside this House to express concern at the manner in which decisions seem to have been taken at a very late stage with regard to the taking over of this accommodation and the displacement of those at present in the college of art.

I hope the Minister will clarify the process by which this situation has come about. There is a long history behind this matter going back many years but I am concerned with the immediate future rather than the distant past. On 6 February the board of the National College of Art and Design unanimously resolved urgently to request the Minister for Education to begin negotiations immediately with the authorities of University College, Dublin to acquire premises at Earlsfort Terrace and Iveagh Gardens as a permanent solution to the accommodation problems of the college. They made it clear to the Minister that they could accept temporary accommodation only at Earlsfort Terrace. I do not know the process by which we have moved from that to a situation where the board appear to have been told that they must move within six weeks and be installed in Power's distillery, a totally different premises to the one which they have identified as appropriate to their needs. They are to be installed there by next September.

When I raised this matter in the House recently the Minister gave a very easy assurance that there would be no problem about their being installed by next September. Nothing in the history of the acquisition and conversion of accommodation for the public authorities of this State since its foundation justifies that optimism. I say that with no disrespect to those concerned. The procedures and mechanisms of public authorities in dealing with these matters are necessarily time-consuming. The property or at least a lease must be acquired and things rarely happen rapidly where lawyers are involved. There are problems of design and in this instance a feasibility study was carried out several years ago. Since then I understand the number of students has increased by 60 per cent and it seems improbable that the provisions of the feasibility study would be adequate for the present number of students. Perhaps the Minister would clarify this. It may have been a very farsighted feasibility study which would have seen the accommodation at Power's as being far beyond the immediate requirements. Again nothing in the history of the way in which the public authorities of this State operate suggests that it is probable that such a feasibility study would leave room for that kind of expansion. If it did not, that feasibility study is no basis for the conversion of Power's distillery.

The buildings there are substantial and it may be that they are convertible for the use of the college and that this conversion can be planned and carried through, but it is not credible that it could be done at such a pace as to be able within six weeks to move from the Kildare Street premises the heavy equipment and many objects necessary for the work of the students. The Minister does not carry credibility in assuring us that this can be done in a matter of weeks and recent experience suggests that it is highly improbable.

The College of Art is divided into four different parts and I understand that one section was abandoned last year and a move took place to one of three sites in the vicinity of City Quay. The assurance was given that the move would be completed in time and that builders would be out of the way by September. In the event people were still hammering around the place finishing it off last Easter, seven months after the date by which this work was to be completed. That work was not rushed or decided at a few week's notice; it was prepared in advance, but it still over-ran by seven months the period provided. The heavy equipment belonging to the college of art has remained in Kildare Street because of the difficulty of removing it to another site and now we are told that everything can be transferred and installed within six weeks in a building which is miraculously to be converted from a distillery into a college of art.

The Minister should not over-strain the credulity of this House in the matter. He should come clean on the problems and in fairness to the board, students and staff they should be told exactly what will happen. I have put down questions to the Minister as to what communications have been sent by him or other members of the Government, and on what dates, to the board of the National College of Art and Design relating to a proposed move by the college from the existing premises in Kildare Street and also asking what communications he has received from the board, the FWUI and the NCAD Students' Union. I hope the Minister in his reply will enlighten us on these matters. He should tell us whether he or the Taoiseach wrote and what were the terms of these communications. What notice was given of this move? Has this move been accepted by the board? Have the board decided to accept this accommodation which by implication they rejected as recently as February last in saying that the only accommodation they would accept was in Earlsfort Terrace? If the board have taken such a decision, have they communicated it to the staff or to the students? I understand there has been no communication, possibly because there was no decision. Neither staff nor students know what is intended and it is not all clear that the board know what is intended. They do not seem to have been able to communicate.

This is a thoroughly unsatisfactory position, particularly as this institution has had an unhappy history of neglect by the public authorities of this State which culminated in great difficulties ten years ago and led to the introduction of legislation in this House to reconstitute the college on a new basis. This legislation was in many ways inadequate but gave some basis for the college to operate. The difficulties which arose at that time and the disturbances related to them reflected the neglect of the National College of Art and Design by the Government of the day and probably by other Governments, although the Government of the day had been in office for twelve or thirteen years and certainly bore the principal responsibility for that neglect. This institution is central to the whole question of art and design in a country whose deficiencies in this area are as legendary as our feats of literary prowess.

Is it the case that this institution has been given an ultimatum at a few months' notice to move to a building not yet leased or acquired whose conversion from one use, a distillery, to a different use, a college of art and design, is obviously a major operation, contrary to their own clear will unanimously expressed to the Minister a few months ago? If the institution are accommodated there, with whatever hammering will be going on for many years thereafter, distracting the students from their work as the process of conversion goes on, is it the case that they will find themselves on three other sites 20 minutes walk away, as they are at the moment in three buildings ten minutes walk from Kildare Street? Is it proposed to move them temporarily for a few years to Power's Distillery with a view to a later move to Earlsfort Terrace? Is it the case that the complete conversion of Power's Distillery is likely to take three years during which the College of Art and Design will be divided on four different occasions and that by the time the hammering stops and the conversion is completed they will be moved again to Earlsfort Terrace?

The board, staff and students are entitled to know the situation. They are entitled to fair treatment. It would be wrong if we, in our legitimate and understandable concern to alleviate problems of accommodation here which are so acute for Members of this House, should be so totally lacking in consideration that the present generation of students and possibly students for several years to come will be discommoded in a way that will interrupt and damage their education in order to gain for us a few months in the matter of additional accommodation.

The answer is that if this had to be done it should have been done much quicker. If we need this accommodation next September or October, the process of making the change should have been initiated much earlier. The distillery should have been acquired on a temporary or permanent basis and the conversion should have been proceeded with. The staff, students and board should have been in a position to see the work nearing completion and they should have visible assurance that they could settle in next year without the kind of disturbance that went on for several months after their move from Clarendon Street to a new location at City Quay. They did not get that assurance. At this stage they do not know if the accommodation has even been acquired, never mind any work of conversion.

The experience they had in the case of Clarendon Street and our general experience of the pace at which this kind of work is done means they have little prospect of being adequately housed next September having regard to the way the decision is being proceeded with without warning. There is every certainty that next September they will find themselves in a number of different sites, having to trundle backwards and forwards during the day in hail, rain and snow from one place to the other ten years after this Government enacted legislation which proposed to set up a structure—I think it meant a physical as well as an administrative structure—for this college, one that would do credit to the country and which would be fair to the students.

I share the concern of Deputy FitzGerald with regard to the imminent displacement of the National College of Art and Design by what could be called a virtual eviction by the Government if the rumours we have heard are to be believed. I urge the Minister to give us a definitive statement tonight as to the Government's intentions with regard to the college.

It is true that the Government have been approached by all parties in their concern for adequate facilities for Deputies and we share the dilemma in which the Minister and the Government find themselves. However, we cannot facilitate one section by discommoding another section. To do what it is rumoured the Minister proposes would be tantamount to compounding an already distressing situation. The National College of Art and Design is fragmented. There is one portion adjoining Leinster House and other sections are at City Quay, George's Quay and South Prince's Street. A national institution such as the college is not getting the rightful recognition it deserves especially when we saw recently other institutions of national importance being funded. Is the National College of Art and Design forever to be the pauper, the poor section of our educational system? In the Irish Independent to today's date the Minister is quoted as saying that he hopes to have Power's Distillery ready at the end of this term. I was speaking with the students and members of the staff association and the unions involved. We want to be helpful to the Minister. The method he is using at the moment is leading to a direct confrontation——

If the Minister consults the various sections, as I did, they will inform him of this.

Unless the Deputy wants to foment it——

We are trying to be helpful. I can assure him our one concern is to avoid this direct confrontation which seems imminent. How can he realistically tell the House that the college can have their premises vacated and be set up in a place not yet agreed by the board in readiness for the next academic year? The Minister knows the board will only agree on a permanent site. They will accept a temporary suitable site provided the Minister gives them an undertaking that it will lead to permanency. For too long the college has been neglected. In all the reports issued by the institution the one train of thought running through them is the total inadequacy of the facilities available. Perhaps it is fortuitous that the Minister once and for all can make a decision to give this college its rightful place and a permanent site.

Many of the members of the staff association were appalled at the rumours about the college. They were not consulted or informed at any stage. They have indicated that their first preference is for Earlsfort Terrace. I should like the Minister to tell us tonight if he has made arrangements for the transfer to Earlsfort Terrace even in a temporary capacity with a view ultimately to making it a permanent site for the National College of Art and Design. It is grossly unfair to the students and staff of this national institution that they should be treated in this terrible way, not being consulted as to their future. It would not encourage students to undertake any courses in art and design. We are informed that there are approximately 450 full-time students and approximately 700 evening students availing of these facilities. I would ask the Minister to at least give a definitive statement here tonight as to his exact intentions in respect of the displacement of the National College of Art and Design.

I welcome the opportunity to clarify some of the points raised. Deputy Dr. FitzGerald was correct in relating some of the problems to the needs of this House. My priority is the educational one and the welfare of the College of Art. I go along with what Deputy Dr. FitzGerald said about the college being central to the development of art education and that it is an area where we have been weak by tradition. Some people explain that by the fact that art materials were too expensive and that pen and paper was cheap and consequently we excelled in the areas that Deputy Dr. FitzGerald outlined. Worthwhile art has always been produced here and worthwhile work has been done in the college under discussion.

Deputy Dr. FitzGerald said that the way in which public authorities operate gives no grounds for the optimism I have. The general tendency of the contributions of both Deputy Dr. FitzGerald and Deputy Griffin was that there was some kind of hurried tripping over the ultimatum issued in this case. As I explain what happened, the House will see that this is not so. There is an obligation on the Members of this House not to foment confrontation when negotiation, discussion and arrangements can be made for the betterment of any educational institution. I am convinced that this transfer can be made. It is not beyond the wit of man to move heavy equipment, and to make arrangements that will satisfy the staff and the students of the College of Art in this instance. The House will see that I have had discussions with bodies involved during the last few months and that it is my intention and my instruction to my staff that the students and staff should be fully informed of what is going on.

Why have they not been?

I agree that there was an unhappy history there in the past, and except for the possibility that a little bit of irritation, as it does in the oyster, might produce pearls of art, I do not want to see that kind of situation again, and I know that I will not.

The Kildare Street premises occupied by the National College of Art and Design were vested in the Commissioners of Public Works by the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act, 1877, on payment of a consideration of £10,000 to the Royal Dublin Society, in respect of the lands to be acquired by the Commissioners from the Society.

The College had its immediate origins in the Metropolitan School of Art which had its antecedents in "a little academy or school for drawing and painting" which the Dublin Society decided to establish in 1746. It was opened in 1749 in premises built for it by the Society in Shaw's Court, off Dame Street. The Society's school was subsequently transferred at different periods to various other premises, the last such transfer prior to its move to its present premises in Kildare Street being to Leinster House in 1815.

While the date of transfer to the Kildare Street premises is unknown, what is known, and what is patently obvious is that the accommodation there is unsuitable on a long-term basis and, in fact, with the development of the college, particularly in the area of industrial arts, it is less and less satisfactory even on a short-term basis.

Have they a lease?

I am coming to that. At the same time, the provision of more adequate accommodation for the needs of the Houses of the Oireachtas was under examination by the Office of Public Works. Clearly one of the options, rather than provide premises at a distance from Leinster House, was to acquire some of the buildings adjacent to the building in which we now are, and this the more so, when there was already question of finding alternative accommodation for the College of Art.

With the setting up of An Bord of the NCAD on 1 May 1972, the establishment day, a leasing of the Kildare Street premises to An Bord became necessary. Section 27 (1) of the NCAD Act, 1971, provided for the transfer of all property real or personal held or enjoyed before the establishment day by the Minister to An Bord excepting the buildings and premises at Kildare Street, Dublin.

The issue of a new College had, of course, already been raised before the 1971 Act was passed and it had been decided that a college was to have a new building. A problem here was to find a site which would be suitable as a location for a college of this kind and, of course, which would also be acceptable architecturally. One could doubtless acquire sites by going out to newly-developing areas but obviously it is desirable, in the case of the National College of Art, if it can be located in a city centre area, within reasonable access of artistic, educational and commercial facilities. However, as one would expect, it has not proved easy to find a site measuring up to these requirements in the city area.

When I assumed office as Minister for Education, the position was that an amount of preliminary planning had gone on but that there was still difficulty about a site. A site at Morehampton Road was in the possession of the Office of Public Works but it was only about two acres in extent and it has not proved easy to acquire additional land there in order to put together a total site of reasonable size.

It was in this context that the college, as an independent statutory body, commissioned a feasibility study on the former Power's Distillery which had become available following the transfer of Irish Distillers' operations to Midleton. This study was presented to the Higher Education Authority by the board of the college and discussed with me at a meeting which I had last year with representatives of the colleges and of the Authority. The proposal has considerable merit in that it would provide a city centre location for the college which would help to revitalise that part of the historic city and in that it is a commendable effort to adapt fine buildings to an educational and aesthetic purpose.

The Minister has only one minute.

Nevertheless, there were reservations on the part of some people on the merit of settling on the distillery as the permanent location for the college.

The number of seats in the Dáil has to be increased and this will lead to further pressures on space in Leinster House. The Government as a matter of immediate urgency, have to seek to have alternative accommodation provided on a temporary basis for the college in order to free the space in Kildare Street for the use of the Houses of the Oireachtas.

In the course of seeking such alternative accommodation, it became clear that Powers Distillery, already the subject of the feasibility study, presented the most realistic possibility in the short-run. Powers was not the only possibility considered but, as I have said, it appeared to be the most realistic one. I contacted the Chairman of the board of the college and explained the position to him. Subsequently, officials of my Department had discussions with representatives of the board of the College of Art, of the Higher Education Authority, and of Irish Distillers in order to further the proposal. As the college is a designated institution for purposes of the Higher Education Act, my Department formally requested the Higher Education Authority to arrange for the transfer of the college's accommodation. The authority was also asked, and I would like to emphasise this, to undertake an initiative with a view to finding permanent accommodation; and Earlsfort Terrace was considered.

The present position in this regard is that, while the works envisaged in the feasibility study to which I have referred would be a major undertaking in providing the college with permanent accommodation, the present proposal envisages the adaptation on a short-term basis of a section of the distillery which appears suitable for the purpose and does not require major works of adaptation. The board of the college have commissioned a firm of architects, namely, those who undertook the feasibility study, and these are, in conjunction with other consultants, engaged in drawing up detailed plans for the transfer. The architects have available to them the advice of a steering committee representative of the board of the College of Art, of the Higher Education Authority and of my Department's Building Unit. Irish Distillers Ltd., who have been most co-operative in this whole matter for which I thank them, have indicated that, if required, further accommodation can be made available at their premises in Bow Street, about 7 minutes walk from Powers. The company had administrative offices there until very recently.

The college students' union wrote to me about the proposals and I arranged that they would meet with senior officials of my Department. A fruitful briefing session took place there. I understand that representatives of the students arranged to visit the distillery premises. I have no record of any communication from the FWUI.

The time is up, Minister.

Will the Minister stake his position on the place being ready for them to go into in September?

Absolutely.

The Minister will resign if it is not ready?

Sorry, the time is up.

Top
Share