McNulty appointment failure of promises

Could there be a better example of the utter contempt of those in power for the electorate than the appointment of Mr John McNulty to the board of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA)?

A man who has never evidently demonstrated the slightest interest in modern art – and who didn’t even seek the appointment – is made a board member of one of Ireland’s most important cultural institutions, in order to satisfy the politically expedient need to buffer his cultural credentials as a would-be government senator.

And then we get the spin pouring out of government offices and PR lackeys: we need to better balance ‘regional representation’; the appointee has a ‘track record in promoting culture, heritage, the GAA and the Irish language’.

I am sure I am not the only person struggling to make a link between Mr McNulty’s alleged cultural attachments and his capacity to engage with the work of Jackson Pollock, etc.

What this episode demonstrates is the hollowness of the claims made for ‘new politics’ in the wake of the crash. Crony governance lives on in the shape of elite patronage and a posture of determined impunity at the highest levels of power.

Dr John O’ Brennan

Department of Sociology

Maynooth University

Maynooth

Co Kildare