A light which shone in a window at Áras an Uactaráin when Mary Robinson was President was valued at €250,000 according to the Foundation which had planned to locate a presidential library in County Mayo.
Two weeks after Prime Time broadcast its last report on the proposed Mary Robinson Presidential Library, the Victoria House Foundation, announced it was abandoning its plan to locate Mary Robinson’s archive in Ballina, Co. Mayo. Instead, her collection of papers is to be gifted to NUI Galway, in a statement the Foundation said it would, ‘obviate the need to duplicate expensive archival facilities in Ballina’.
The archive collection of hundreds of thousands of documents and other items has been valued by the Revenue Commission at €4.65 million according to the Foundation, but Revenue has not confirmed this. Separately, some years ago another valuation put it at €2.5 million.
Now, documents obtained by Prime Time under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the Victoria House Foundation had told insurers that her famous ‘Light in the Window’ was worth €250,000. The Centre informed their insurers of this in an email sent by them on 20th February 2015.
Mrs. Robinson put the light in a window at Áras an Uactaráin when she served as President in the 1990’s. The light was a symbol to Irish emigrants all over the world, that there was a welcome for them at home.
It also emerged in recent weeks, that Mrs. Robinson’s brother Adrian Bourke has resigned from the Foundation. Mr. Bourke owns the former family home and Mayo County Council planned to buy it from him to locate the library there. In October Prime Time reported on the complex structures of the Foundation, staff members at Mayo County Council were members of the board, as was Mr. Bourke, who was to sell the house to the local authority. The proposed transaction was disclosed in the Foundation’s Annual Report and was not a breach of company law.
In mid October Mr. Bourke resigned. Under the Freedom of Information Act Prime Time received the letter of resignation he submitted to fellow board members. In it Mr Bourke confirms he has asked the County Council to re-value the house which they are to buy from him. He said previous valuations – one was €665,000- are “completely out of date”. He told board members he intended to engage with the Mayo County Manager Peter Hynes and his staff, “immediately in order to reach finality and an early closing”.
He states that he is to resign from the board due to the discussions, and says, “there may be a conflict, either real or perceived”.
Despite the fact the archive is now to be based in NUIG, the Victoria House Foundation has said developing a visitor centre in Mary Robinson’s childhood home, ‘remains the preferred option’, but ‘other options’ are being explored as part of its review of the project.
Watch the original Prime Time revelations on proposed presidential library from Oct 2016 here.
