[A Royal de Luxe performance in Berlin in 2009, top, and Arts Minister Jimmy Deenihan, above]
Last weekend Arts, Culture and Gaeltacht Minister Jimmy Deenhian referred to a project that former artistic director Karl Wallace wanted to bring to Limerick as a ‘puppet show’.
He said: “I did see that there was one event that was costing something like €1.6 or €1.8 mentioned, that, I think the manager or the board refused to sanction. I think it was some puppet show, some major international event that they refused to sanction.”
Minister Deenihan was talking about the Royal de Luxe.
This morning, Mr Wallace told Limerick Leader:
“The newspaper articles about Royal de Luxe are worrying. Has no-one the time to properly investigate instead of throwing out soundbites that are unfounded and at best ill-informed? Royal de Luxe are without question the world’s best pagentry company. The fee for their performance in Limerick was estimated at €315,000 with the remainder, such as health and safety officers, technicians, site managers, local performers etc all costing the remainder, approx €1.2m. This €1.2m was to be spent mostly on local employment and as a result, of benefit to the local economy and the people of Limerick.”
He added:
“We wanted to ensure that the €6m went first and foremost to local projects. The remaining €2.6m was earmarked for international events coming into the city (not including RDL). Royal de Luxe remained in a second phase of projects waiting for private funding – at the last count these projects amount to approx €3.2m and include more money for local projects too. This money is yet to be raised and therefore Royal de Luxe is a project currently on hold.”
Karl Wallace rejects ‘puppet show’ description of major event (Limerick Leader)
Pic: Boston.com
Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland
