It's not often that leading Irish politicians have gone out of their way to espouse non-commercial musical causes. However, in launching the Royal Irish Academy of Music's 150th anniversary celebrations this week, the Taoiseach, Mr Bertie Ahern, did just that. He publicly declared his sympathy - and that of the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms Sile de Valera - for the proposal to establish a Centre of the Performing Arts, or a Conservatoire, on the same Earlsfort Terrace site as the National Concert Hall.
This proposal was strongly espoused by the review body which produced the PIANO Report. Dr John O'Conor, the group's chairman, and his team are to be commended for getting this important development, which was not part of PIANO's core brief, onto the Government's current agenda.
The Taoiseach, however, went well beyond a declaration of sympathy. He announced that he will set up an inter-departmental committee to look at the project's feasibility and its implications for UCD - still the major occupier of the Earlsfort Terrace site. He stressed the importance of musical performance as an integral part of the cultural infrastructure, highlighting its role in the development of Dublin as an international capital city. And he insisted that third-level educational developments should proceed "without prejudice" to the encouragement of widespread musical education at more elementary levels.
Here, as the 1994 Irish Times/RTE Music in the Classroom conference made clear, is the real nub of the issue. The greatest shortcomings in musical education in Ireland are experienced in our primary and secondary schools. The widespread absence of music from our primary schools, its patchy presence at secondary level, and the lack of any viable infrastructure for tuition in performance add up to a shameful picture that is not replicated in any other European country.
Disadvantaged as they are, Irish students of musical performance at third level can now exploit their freedom of access to education in the member states of the European Union. The pupils of our primary and secondary schools have no such option. It is to be hoped that the interest of the Taoiseach and his Arts Minister will resolve, not only the problems of a small but important professional group, but also extend to correcting the major scandal of neglect that has dogged music in our educational system for decades.