The Arts Council's new Arts Plan presents a challenge to this society: either we accept that we must allocate substantial funds to the arts or else dump the hypocrisy and admit that they just don't matter in the new Ireland.

Comparing arts funding in different countries is quite a difficult research task, because funding structures differ so widely. But the task was undertaken for this plan. And the fact is that, despite the doubling of funding to the Arts Council during the five-year term of the last plan, the level of arts funding in this country is appallingly low. In Sweden the level is £62.14 per person, per year - but wouldn't you expect that of the Scandinavians? Perhaps more galling is the fact that the figure for Scotland is £27.84, for England £24.23 and for Northern Ireland (excluding Lottery funding) - it's £17.32. For the Republic, the current figure is £12.36.

The funding target for the three-year span of this plan (until 2001) is £100 million - rising from £28 million this year to £34.5 million next year and £37.5 million the year after. On Tuesday at the launch of the plan in the Arts Council's headquarters, Minister Sile de Valera said the Government was committed to funding the plan in full. The Rainbow Coalition slid back from funding the last plan - rescheduling it to run over five years, rather than the agreed three. The present government rescheduled it again to run over four years, but we are still, arguably, a year behind in funding. It is crucial that pressure be kept on the Government not to back-slide from this funding commitment.

Although the importance of the funding may be obvious within the sector, outside, it just isn't. The problem Irish artists face is they have produced so much great art on little or no public subsidy. It is important to remember that before there was public subsidy, our undoubted strengths were mostly in non-visual arts which are relatively cheap to produce. Another reason we have traditionally produced more art than one might expect is that we had nothing else to do. It doesn't sit nicely with our notion of ourselves as possessing some magic artistic gene, but it is undoubtedly true. Interviewed for an article on this page last week, Tom Conroy of Macnas spoke of the huge pool of unemployed graduate talent which existed in Galway in the late 1970s and early 1980s as one of the main reasons for the artistic flowering there. Now that there are decent jobs, he said: "A new Macnas could not be born."

There will always be vocational artists who will spurn any inducement to give up their art. But the appreciation of art relies on a whole network of other artists and arts workers. Many of these will not stay to mature in a sector with few career development prospects and appalling levels of pay, when there are other jobs on offer. Better prospects in the arts will have to be created.

The Indecon report on the last Arts Plan which the Arts Council commissioned warned of this problem, and also of the danger of the arts sector's reliance on FAS schemes. The Arts Plan takes up this theme, warning that FAS grants to arts and cultural activities are likely to fall by 25 per cent during the term of the plan.

The hard fact is that in this competitive economy we are going to have to pay for our arts as they do in other developed democracies, or to discover too late that the Irish artistic gene has gone missing.

The new identity the Arts Council is giving itself, as a "development agency" rather than as a funding body is probably inevitable given the level of resources the council now has, and the management culture which now exists. However, if artists themselves are not to feel that the council, and not they, is charting the direction of the arts in Ireland, it is vital the "dialogue" promised in the plan materialises. The council is promising to devise "more effective communication channels" and these should be put in place without delay.

The plan is much stronger on the broad strokes of the kind of organisation the council is attempting to become, than on specific objectives. This may be inevitable in such a phase of development and it may be wise - but a clear articulation of its objectives will have to come before funding is allocated next year, so that clients can both evaluate the council and understand the evaluation they have undergone.

The plan commits the council to reviewing its practices and training its staff to become a "development agency", but the worry persists that that this will prove impossible, at least within the period of the plan. More staff members are obviously needed if working the plan is not to stretch the council to breaking point - where many feel it is already. The "one fell swoop" appointment of the Arts Council is ridiculous in the context of the "development agency", and Minister de Valera should look at amending the Arts Act to allow for one by one replacement of members. If this does not happen, the staff of the council will end up leading decision-making still more than they do already, and the whole concept of an independent council will be defunct.

There are some jarring notes in the plan. Why are the Irish language and the so-called "traditional arts" (traditional music and dance) lumped together? What possible connection do they have to each other (except being what the ignorant might consider the preserve of "peasants"). This clumsy coupling undermines the huge value of both the Irish language and areas of music and dance which are in constant development and are arguably less "traditional" than, say, painting. There is no acknowledgement in the plan of the disastrous nature of the last plan's chapter on dance and the fact that dance has, if anything, suffered in its term. The focus on three Dublin companies was artificial and unfair and left no space for the emergence of groups like Mandance and Coisceim who did some of the most interesting work. Although there was research into the feasibility of an international dance company, nothing happened, and the research into dance training similarly seemed to lead nowhere.

There are some really excellent initiatives in the plan too, however. The commitment to look at the setting up of a committee, with the Department of Education and the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, to help bring the arts in from the margins of education, is crucial, and was mentioned again and again the Arts Council's consultative meetings. The commitment to push for more arts awareness among local authorities, too, seems strong: currently they only provide about 15 per cent of arts funding, while in other European countries the figure is more likely to be around 50 per cent. The focus on working with the Department of Foreign Affairs towards helping Irish art's international profile is long overdue, but may be difficult to achieve without more staff. As things stand, Ireland competes for international attention against the dedicated international cultural funding and touring bodies of other countries. The section on architecture is exciting, especially the commitment to preparing a submission to the Department of the Environment proposing amendments to planning legislation and aesthetic guidelines for planning. If architecture really is, as the plan says, "the most evident registration of our culture and its values", what does that say about us now? That we are a mature, confident, aesthetically aware society, intent on allocating £100 million to the arts before the end of 2001?

The Arts Council will meet with the arts sector today at the Civic Centre, Tallaght at noon