FLAK & SCANS OVER X-PENSE

Gallery's €175k lead-lined room costs more than device itself

- DARRAGH MC DONAGH

THE National Gallery of Ireland will spend €175,000 on a lead-lined room for an X-ray scanner that has gathered dust for eight years as it had nowhere to house the device.

It paid nearly €125,000 for the scanner to examine artworks in 2017 but it has never been used because it does not have a room that can contain radiation.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin said it was “incomprehensible” that the National Gallery would spend so much money on a scanner without having the facilities to accommodate it.

He described the purchase of the machine as a “very difficult story to explain' and added people need to be held accountable.