Kathleen Barrington speaks to Síle de Valera, Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands about her love of the Arts and her proposed legislative review of funding for the Arts.

Síle de Valera, Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands has a wide-ranging brief embracing many different fields of interest. It's a challenge that the minister finds exciting, but admits that keeping abreast of the new technology does make huge demands, she left me in no doubt that it is the ministry she would have chosen above any other.

From the time she was a small child Síle de Valera has been surrounded by people involved in music, painting and the theatre. Both her parents had a love of music and painting, but it was her grandmother, Sinead, bean de Valera, with her story telling and her plays that nurtured the young Síle's interest in the stage. A fine amateur actress, she had a great love of theatre and encouraged the young Síle to share that love. Síle developed a love of music and dance, but still has an abiding interest in the theatre. She admits that going to a play, instead of seeing it as an ordinary member of the audience, she automatically assesses the organisation and administration behind the performance. "Don't think that spoils my enjoyment of the performance. It's just that I see things from a different angle."

The minister was happy to give me good news about the Abbey. She has looked at the work necessary for the theatre building. Of the three options - building on a "greenfield" site; adapting the present building to conform with health and safety standards; or rebuilding on the existing site, her preferred option, in agreement with the Abbey, is to rebuild. Because the high costs could not be met within her department's existing budget, she was meeting within the week with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance to obtain the necessary funding. With just two weeks to go before the Dail Summer recess, she made it clear that the Abbey building project was a top priority because of her appreciation of the National Theatre's role historically and in present day terms. She is looking for a quick decision so that a glorious new Abbey will be in place for the Centenary in 2004. I told her she would be making Ben Barnes' dream come true. "It's my dream too", she said.

Of great interest to the whole profession is her plan for a complete review of the legislation for funding of the arts. The proposals were published this month and she is looking for comments from practitioners. She makes the point that the last Arts Act was in 1973 and that a review is timely. She has a number of questions about the principle vehicle for funding the Arts.

• "Is the Arts Council too big?"
• "Do we need regional regional/local structures";
• "Should the Department of Arts and Culture be responsible for all Exchequer funding both at home and abroad?"

That the minister left a meeting involving other ministers and ministers of state to talk to me shows the interest she has in Equity and its members. She was frank, friendly and totally informal. Her final words were "Please keep in touch. I will be interested to hear from you."

*Reproduced with the kind permission of the Irish Actors Equity, Equity News Quarterly Volume 2/1 - July 2000.