Independent Dublin city councillor Mannix Flynn has been re-elected to the board of Temple Bar Cultural Trust (TBCT) less than two months after he resigned, describing the company as “a wreck”.
Mr Flynn, a well-known artist and polemicist, said he would not have resigned in April if he had realised that the city council would select a Fine Gael councillor, Ruairí McGinley, to replace him.
Following complaints by the Independent group, Mr McGinley resigned from the TBCT board on May 24th – within days of being appointed – paving the way for Mr Flynn to resume his role as a director.
This latest twist in the TBCT saga comes after its board – now dominated by city council nominees – decided to wind up the company and suspend its chief executive, Dermot McLaughlin.
The suspension of Mr McLaughlin just after he returned from a short-lived secondment to Derry UK City of Culture followed the discovery that he had offered €100,000-plus severance terms to three staff.
They were told that the chief executive no longer had the authority to make such offers – seen as exceptionally generous by the board – and one of them has since initiated legal proceedings on this issue.
Mr Flynn said he wanted to know how many such legal actions were being taken against TBCT and whether €100 million in public funds given to the company over the years had been properly administered.
In a motion tabled for last Monday’s city council meeting, he referred to its audit of the company, which found serious failures of corporate governance, and called for further “forensic audits” to be carried out.
Mr Flynn is particularly anxious to establish how TBCT performed during the boom years of 2005-2007 and wants its €2.3 million rainscreen project for Meeting House Square to be audited.
He also wanted to find out what investigations are taking place by the company itself or by third parties.
