"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Sage advice. The legislation governing the arts isn't broken but the parameters have moved beyond anyone's wildest dreams from the time the main Arts Act was drawn up almost 50 years ago.
I'm not fixing the legislation but I believe there have to be major adjustments to the parameters which have moved so significantly, particularly in the last few years.
The first Arts Act, setting up the Arts Council, dates back to 1951. Spending by the council in its first 15 months was £11,642. In 1973, when an additional Arts Act was signed into law, spending amounted to £100,000.
This year the Arts Council has a budget of £34.5 million. Next year it will be £37.5 million.
The arts environment has clearly changed. The arts play a much more important role in the development of our society. This has to be reflected in our legislation.
The discussion document I have launched highlights important issues which must be addressed in the review of our arts legislation and structures.
These include the role of the Arts Council, the relationship between Government and the arts, the development of the arts at regional and local level, Aosdana, North-South relations, the arts and the Irish language and cultural diversity.
The issues raised in the discussion document are certainly not exhaustive. I'm sure many other issues will come to the fore as we go through the review.
Most of us remember a time when the arts in Ireland were a largely centralised, essentially elitist issue. At that time the Arts Council was too often seen as something between a protection agency and a charity.
You went to it with your hand out and got from it enough funding to keep you - and the art you were involved with - alive.
The Arts Council never really functioned in that way but precisely how it did function was unclear to the public.
Not that the public was greatly bothered by the lack of clarity: sure, wasn't that the arts and what had the arts to do with the rest of us?
All that has changed. In the past few years we have witnessed an unprecedented flourishing of the arts in this State. Arts centres have sprung up right throughout the provinces, facilitating much wider participation.
Theatre, sculpture, music are no longer the preserve of a city-based elite. There is little or no elitism: the arts have gone mainstream.
Just as importantly, we've stopped seeing the arts as a worthy but essentially grant-receiving activity. The arts are big business, making a huge contribution, not just to tourism but to almost every area of the economy.
As a result, the old perception of the Arts Council as essentially a "donor" or "grant" organisation is out of date.
The council has reconfigured itself as a development agency, planning strategically to stimulate and support the arts rather than respond to requests for funding on a case-by-case basis.
It was regrettable and very unfortunate that at the time of this development the council found itself at the centre of negative publicity. Some of the coverage was offensive. It was pejorative to suggest that because members of the current council come from the regions they are, ipso facto, "parochial".
CLEARLY, the few individuals making this remark do not realise that to take an elitist view of the arts is to misunderstand their nature. Nor do they realise that appreciation of, and involvement in, the arts is not the prerogative of citizens of the capital. It is the common currency of all our people.
The difficulties in the Arts Council are now history. They did not influence my decision to carry out a review of arts legislation and structures. I had decided early last year that such a review was needed and this was contained in the Government's An Action Plan for the Millennium, published in November.
Of course, the discussion document I have now launched devotes considerable attention to the Arts Council, and rightly so as it has played a central role in the development of the arts.
But is the council's structure relevant to today's needs? I believe we have to consider reducing the numbers on the council, possibly by half. Few businesses would have a board of nearly 20 members. It is unwieldy.
In addition to addressing the numbers there is need to define the distinct role of the executive and of the policy-making board. Indeed, should we consider abolishing the Arts Council and replacing it with two separate bodies?
An Advisory Arts Council could advise and assist the Government, through my Department, in developing national arts policy and strategic planning for the arts. A second agency, the Executive Arts Board, could operate at arm's length from Government to develop and implement arts plans with the role of disbursing the voted Exchequer funds.
These are just some of the questions I pose in relation to the Arts Council.
I have launched the discussion document to open a debate and to invite all those involved in the arts - the practitioners, the administrators, the audiences - to give me their views on what type of structures and legislation are required for the arts in the new millennium.
I will consider those submissions and will bring policy proposals to Government and publish a new Arts Bill next year. This is a partnership approach. I want everyone interested in the arts to contribute to the process.
Since I was appointed Minister, I have said on several occasions that access and excellence are the twin pillars on which my policy on the arts is based. Every decision I have made since I came into my Department has been guided by the belief that art is a dialogue, that it is imperative in a democracy to ensure that dialogue reaches and involves all citizens, not just a select few.
This rationale will form the basis of the proposals I will bring to Government.
In conclusion, I will describe again the environment I want for the arts. I hope, when historians look back on the present times, they will say: "This was a period of confidence and creativity. A time when Ireland began to reflect itself in a more complex, subtle way.
"A time of challenge and choice, of access and participation. A time when the painters, the dancers, the singers - the dreamers of dreams - found themselves valued by the nation and validated by the State."
Sile de Valera is Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands