Abbey Theatre board criticised by independent review

The Arts Council told the Abbey to commission the review, which was carried out by Crowe Ireland, as a condition of receiving public funding. It was triggered by the fact that the theatre had run up a bill of about €1m in legal costs, redundancy and compensation payments around the departure of Neil Murray and Graham McLaren as co-directors.

The report, which was delivered to the Abbey last December, has still not been published in full. Instead the theatre has only published a summary of Crowe Ireland’s findings and recommendations, saying it is acting on legal advice.

In a statement to the Irish Independent, the former co-directors said they had not seen the full report, but it was “reassuring” that the summary addresses “several serious governance shortcomings” they had been highlighting to the Department of Arts and to the Arts Council since 2020.

Mr McLaren and Mr Murray said they had given interviews and documents to the Crowe Ireland team over a six-month period on the basis that they would be shown relevant sections of the report before it was published. This had not happened, they say, and their first sight of the summary and recommendations only came when the Abbey Theatre posted them online at midday today.

Among the findings are that:

• The Abbey failed to adhere to its own constitution when re-appointing one board member. This director played an important role in a committee dealing with complaints for over a year even though he was no longer on the board.
• The governance arrangements of two committees that investigated complaints were not in accordance with either the Abbey’s constitution or with good governance.
• The involvement of the chair of the Abbey’s board – which at the time was Dr Ruane – in both of these committees “left the board with no independent final arbiter”.
• No-one at the Abbey seems to have been responsible for dealing with employer practices’ liability insurance cover, “and there was considerable confusion as to what cover was in place”. Crowe Ireland said it was “remiss of the board not to have sought to explore the extent of the cover” as it might have funded some of the cost of the legal advice and investigations.
• A former senior member of the Abbey executive was still responsible for engaging with the theatre’s insurance broker nine months after leaving his job. Crowe Ireland says it is not in line with good governance practice for responsibility for insurance matters to be handled by an ex-employee.
• The Abbey board was not in receipt of advice supplied by the theatre’s own legal advisers. Also, relying on additional legal advice but not asking for it in writing “is not in compliance with good governance”.

The report also criticises record-keeping and note-keeping in relation to the two committees that were set up to deal with complaints. “There was a significant failure…to keep adequate records of meetings regarding the investigations,” it says.

No notes of the business of the two committee were kept by the Abbey. Furthermore one of the committees had no agreed terms of reference, and no record of discussions or decisions in writing, plus no effective way of keeping members of the board informed about what it was doing.

Dr Ruane’s terms as chair of the Abbey ended on July 28. She was given a two-year term extension by Arts Minister Catherine Martin after her original four-year term expired in July 2022. She has been succeeded by John Cronin.

In a comment today, the board of the Abbey said “some key actions” have already been taken to implement the recommendations in the report. “The board is mindful of its responsibility to provide accountability and transparency in its governance arrangements and their application, and of its obligation to correct course and make changes when that responsibility has not been met,” it said.

“The board acknowledges that the review process has been constructive on both fronts.”

The Arts Council said it welcomed publication by the Abbey of the findings and recommendations. “We can confirm that all conditions attached to their 2022 funding agreement relating to this matter have now been satisfied,” it said.

“A monitoring and implementation plan is now in place in relation to all agreed actions, and we note that the Abbey Theatre will be publishing six-monthly updates on the progress of these.”