Dr Bodkin’s recommendation was placed before the Council at their October meeting and the following decision was communicated to the Minister:

the Council does not care to make a decision at this stage as to the most suitable artist, but suggests that the Minister should permit an Chomhairle Ealaíon to institute a competition for a suitable mural.

The letter continued with details of the competition.

The Minister dismissed the proposal to hold a competition and requested the names of one or two Irish artists whose work would be suitable for a commission of this kind.

The names of Seán Keating and Charles Lamb were eventually communicated to the Minister by the Director Seán Ó’Faolain who, on his own initiative, also added another artist: ‘In suggesting Mr Louis le Brocquy’s name I have in mind not Mr le Brocquy’s paintings so much as his extremely skilful designs for tapestries’. The letter concluded that the Council would be only too happy to give any further assistance by advising on the suitability of the proposed designs from an artistic point of view.

The correspondence was acknowledged on 22 October 1957 and no further communication emerged until the 3 February 1959 when arrangements were made to go to the Department to view a ‘cartoon’ of the mural submitted by Seán Keating.

Seán Ó’Faoláin and Michael Scott fulfilled this task and in a letter to the Minister on the 5 February 1959  (see letter no. 3 in archive material) stated:

The result has been something in the nature of a piece of poster work of a very high class nature intended for propaganda such as has been in the past frequently produced as Soviet art, and is now completely discredited even as good propaganda.

The mural entitled Irish Industrial Development was formally presented to the ILO on the 19 June 1961 by Jack Lynch, Minister of Industry and Commerce, and is located in the main stairway of the Centre William Rappard, the current home of the World Trade Organisation, in Geneva, Switzerland.