Council looks to take over running Smock Alley Theatre

Dublin City Council intends to take over running the Smock Alley Theatre in Temple Bar at an estimated cost of around €250,000 per year – as the company currently running it has run into financial difficulties.

Smock Alley Company Ltd has leased the building since 2008 from the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, which was itself brought under the umbrella of Dublin City Council in 2014.

The building was formerly the SS Michael and John’s Church and School, according to a September 2023 council report

“Following the opening of the theatre it has operated with some success, however, over the years the theatre has struggled on & off with its finances,” says the council report.

The theatre company ran more recently into “significant difficulty in discharging its liabilities”, and struggled to pay the rent, says the report.

Finances

Smock Alley Company Ltd’s most recently filed financial statement, for 2021, one of the pandemic years, shows a loss of about €22,000 on turnover of €700,000.

Its listing on the Charities Regulator’s website shows more expenditure than income in both 2021 and 2022.

“The effects of Covid 19 and the enormous impact on all arts venues from March 2020 to February 2022 has had a significant effect on the company’s operations,” the company’s financial statement for 2021 says.

But after discussions with its bank, the Arts Council, and its landlord Dublin City Council, the company put together a “viable business plan and working capital projections for the next 12 months”, says the document dated September 2022.

However, the financial statement also includes, among the notes, a statement from the auditor.

“We have not obtained all the information and explanations that we considered necessary for the purpose of our audit; and we are unable to determine whether adequate accounting records have been kept,” it says.

Winding it up

The Temple Bar Cultural Trust has been talking to the board and managers of Smock Alley “with a view to an orderly wind up of the Company”, the council’s report from last September says.

The report said they planned to wind up the Smock Alley Company in December 2023, and launch the Dublin Municipal Theatre in January 2024. But that hasn’t happened.

Independent Councillor Mannix Flynn, who sits on the board of the Temple Bar Cultural Trust, says an audit is underway into the financial issues in the Smock Alley Theatre Ltd.

The board met earlier this week and Flynn says the council needs to take over the theatre soon, or he would be concerned about it going under. “This is an ongoing situation of grave concern,” says Flynn.

He supports the council taking over the theatre, to keep people in their jobs and ensure that performers are not affected, he says.

A new municipal theatre

Social Democrats Councillor Cat O’Driscoll chairs the arts committee in Dublin City Council and says the takeover is a good opportunity for the council to secure a municipal theatre.

This would be a similar model to the way the council runs the Hugh Lane Gallery on Parnell Square, she says.

“It’s a really important establishment and having a municipal theatre is something that the arts SPC [strategic policy committee] had called for,” she says.

Performers need developmental spaces for performing arts to thrive, says O’Driscoll.

Dublin has a shortage of mid-sized theatre spaces, she says. The council should protect cultural spaces and ensure that they are accessible to community groups, says O’Driscoll.

“Having something that is so community-focused, to me it makes sense,” she says.

The Temple Bar Cultural Trust would set up a board for the new Dublin Municipal Theatre Company, which would oversee operations and “ensure the corporate governance responsibilities of the new entity are adhered to,” says the council report.

The board will include council executives, councillors, other external board members and an independent chair, it says.

O’Driscoll says she was asked to sit on the board and she agreed.

A spokesperson for the Smock Alley Company Ltd said that it didn’t want to comment.

Dublin City Council hasn’t responded to queries sent Thursday and Tuesday by email.