Report critical of original promoters of city’s arthouse cinema

Galway City Tribune – The original promoters of Galway’s arthouse cinema, Solas, were inexperienced and did not have the skills to deliver the project, according to a new report by the Department of Culture, Heritage and Gaeltacht.

The criticism is contained in a ‘Post Project Review of the Pálás Cinema Project’, which was published by the Department’s Evaluation Unit, as part of its spending review of 2019.

In its conclusions and recommendations, the report – published alongside last week’s Budget – said: “The main problem with the project was the fact that the original project promoters (Solas), while very well intentioned, and passionate about cinema, were not sufficiently skilled to manage a project as complex as Pálás.”

The report concluded that Solas “had no demonstrable experience of operating a cinema or managing a large construction project”.

The Department said it “should have taken that lack of experience into account when awarding the grant and perhaps insisted at an earlier stage that Solas partner with a professional cinema operator and that an experienced project manager be brought on board”.

The review concluded that the “grant funding processes in place were not optimal” to mitigate against this.
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