The Arts Council has brought out a new pamphlet on the arts and disability, which was launched last week by Minister Sile de Valera. Really what it is a statement of intent: "The Arts Council will," it begins, "address the needs of people with disabilities through the development and implementation, over a phased period of time, of a policy on arts and disability; by influencing arts organisation through incentives and encouragement; by working with other agencies."

Among the initiatives which the Council has taken to promote this policy, has been the selection of a team to train council members and staff in "Disability Equality Training" - focusing on, for instance, "appropriate and inappropriate language, terminology and behaviour".

It may surprise some people that while the council sees "arts and disability" as a term encompassing arts activities which involve people with disabilities both as practitioners and audience members, it also recognises "disability arts" as a "specific arts practice which involves work done by artists with disabilities as an expression of their identity as disabled people".

Do some disabled people feel that this distinction ghettoises them? Answers on the email, please.

The pamphlet, which is available from the council, also has a list of useful agencies and associations.