For some companies, collecting art is all about prestige, but one law firm seems to appreciate the bigger picture, writes Aidan Dunne.

As you might expect of a law firm that is known for breaking the mould, Mason Hayes+Curran has taken its own particular approach to building an art collection. A relatively young contender in a branch of the profession - business law - traditionally dominated by a handful of well-known names, it seems to relish its slightly unorthodox, outsider status. That it has what can actually be called a contemporary art collection is in itself unusual. Generally, and for obvious reasons, it is the larger organisations, such as AIB and Bank of Ireland, or Axa, to take a few obvious examples, who build significant art collections.

On that scale Mason Hayes+Curran, though a fast-growing firm, is and will remain a comparatively small one (with a total staff of 200-plus). Most smaller businesses, legal and otherwise, wouldn't set about buying artworks in any concerted way, and many would regard it as an aspect of interior decoration - which to some extent it can be. There are several notable exceptions: market researchers Behaviour & Attitudes, for example, has a remarkable track record in commissioning artists.

Last year, Mason Hayes+Curran moved into a purpose-built office block on Dublin's Barrow Street, close to Grand Canal Dock, a part of the city that has been transformed beyond recognition in the last few years. Their offices are adjacent to the Dart station and just across the road from Google's headquarters.

Previously, the firm was spread across six Georgian houses in Fitzwilliam Square and Leeson Street. The collection was initially built up in that widely dispersed setting.

Managing partner Declan Moylan, whose deadpan demeanour masks a sharp, subversive wit, was a prime mover in the acquisition of art, though he is by no means alone in his enthusiasm. Initially, he says with disconcerting frankness: "We bought a lot of things fairly indiscriminately."

As tastes matured, they found themselves in possession of quite a number of works they felt would not look particularly at home in Barrow Street.

"What suits the rooms in a Georgian house is not necessarily going to look right in a fairly uncompromising modern space," as Moylan puts it. By then there was a company art committee, and its novel solution to the problem was a staff art auction. It was, as one of the committee, Colman Curran, recalls, not only very successful but also a lot of fun.

PART OF THEproceeds of that auction went toward one of the prize pieces in the collection as it currently stands, a substantial Stephen McKenna painting of an idyllic Italian scene, Terrace at Ronzano. It's a painting that powerfully sets a mood.

As with several other pieces in the collection, it hangs in splendid isolation in one of the conference rooms which are, one could say without exaggeration, the nerve centres of the firm, the places where agreements are thrashed out and deals are done.

Neither Moylan nor Curran are to be drawn on the question of whether meetings are assigned to conference rooms on the basis of the climate established by the resident painting, but presumably a degree of psychological acuity prevails. A glance in the direction of McKenna's mellow pastoral would surely relax even the flintiest financial temperament, extending as it does the prospect of Mediterranean ease.

What's striking about Mason Hayes+Curran's interest in art is the steepness of the learning curve. They have been careful but also ambitious.

More than that, though, rather than simply viewing artworks as objects with, say, a certain prestige or monetary value, the firm evidently appreciates the wider cultural landscape and its potential role within it.

The atrium of the new building features a major sculptural commission, by Corban Walker: like an abstract interpretation of a birch grove, it comprises a group of mirrored, narrow pillars. The arrangement of reflective surfaces interacts brilliantly with the space, expanding it into a maze of intersecting perspectives.

Many people don't know just how complex and expensive a sculptural commission on such a scale can be. In fact, Moylan acknowledges, they weren't entirely aware initially either, and the piece is slightly scaled down from the original proposal.

The experience of working with Walker and his gallery, Green on Red, was, he says, entirely positive. The work has also proved to be extremely popular with staff and visitors to the building.

Prior to that, the firm sponsored an exhibition at Imma featuring the work of the White Stag group, a loose affiliation of pioneering modernist artists who were active in Ireland in the 1940s. They also sponsored a publication, with a text by Colm Tóibín, accompanying Amelia Stein's Loss and Memoryexhibition at the Rubicon Gallery.

"We want to be involved in supporting the arts," as Moylan puts it. Buying works, and sponsorship, are the two main ways of doing that. On a personal level he has been involved in Business2Arts, which publicises and promotes imaginative sponsorships with an awards scheme.

All of which is not to suggest that the firm is anything other than realistic when it comes to involvement in the reality of the art market - business law is where they're at, after all.

"We do watch the market, I think it's fair to say," Moylan acknowledges and in this, unlike a great many new arrivals on the Irish art market, they are relatively well informed. They are also hard-headed enough to know that as established collectors they are in a position to arrange such things as extended terms of payment with galleries.

AS A GENRE, corporate art has the reputation of being bland and abstract, but in fact it's surprisingly easy to think of corporate collections for which that just doesn't hold true. And it certainly isn't true of Mason Hayes+Curran's.

Cast your eyes over Exhibit A: Michelle Rogers's Ground Zero, a huge, thickly impastoed painting depicting files of workers threaded through the ruins of the Twin Towers in the aftermath of September 11th. It hangs in a prominent position on the floor devoted to the conference rooms.

It did, Moylan says, divide opinion to some extent, but on the whole it has been remarkably uncontentious and very well received, which is interesting when you considers that it hits you pretty much head on if you are arriving for a meeting.

Aidan McDermot's Morphic Headis an equally surprising presence in a relatively public space. A startling image (painted from a head initially modelled realistically in plasticine and then considerably distorted), it too has aroused a fair amount of comment.

Yet, Moylan says, on the whole when the boundaries have been pushed in this way, the response has been positive. And, as he observes, that a work of art arousing a bit of a debate is a good rather than a bad thing. For example, a big, broadly brushed painting by Michael Kane, confrontational in its sheer directness, hasn't won everyone over. Fair enough.

Other highlights in the collection include pieces by Simon English, Margaret Morrison, Felicity Clear, Gillian Lawler, Clea Van Der Grijn, Niall Wright, Christopher Banahan, Ronnie Hughes and Laura Buckley.

One of the attributes of any collection, cultural theorists point out, is that it is never complete, and Moylan emphasises the fact that Mason Hayes+Curran's is an ongoing project, as is the firm's more general involvement in visual art. Part of the underlying rationale is to support emergent artists, he notes and, like the rapid evolution of the firm itself, that is a vote of confidence in the emergent Ireland.