Navigating the sprawling Blanchardstown Centre off the N3 in Dublin, you risk missing Draiocht, the purpose-built arts centre that opened officially last month. Constructed of yellow brick, and part of the same new block as Blanchardstown library and Fingal County Council offices, the centre does not stand out.

As I walk through its glass doors, a whiff of chlorine makes me fancy I've chanced on the local swimming pool by mistake. But Draiocht, which means magic in Irish, turns out to possess all sorts of qualities that many arts practitioners, if given magic wands, would be happy to conjure in their own venues.

The spacious foyer, which incorporates a cafe, has an attractive airy feel thanks to its glass front, cream ceramic tiles and blond wood doors, desks and rails. There is a glass-fronted, light-filled exhibition space to the left of the entrance, where Desmond Kenny's pictures of Dublin are currently on view. A circular staircase leads to another roomy, glass-fronted exhibition space upstairs, where the Kenny show continues.

"Desmond is from this area, and when the men were building Draiocht, he came around asking if he could paint them, so it's very appropriate that we are showing his work," says Teerth Chungh, the centre's director. "We want to keep a balance between the local, the national and the international."

Her brown eyes sparkle with pride as she throws open each new door for my delectation. Still smelling of fresh wood, the auditorium is the piece de resistance. The walls are painted a rich red, and the blue raked seating can fit audiences of up to 500 people.

The stage, which has a sprung wooden floor, is enormous. "Apparently, it's as big as the Abbey's," says Chungh - whose husband, Richard Wakely, is the National Theatre's managing director. "It is designed to suit all sorts of performance, and will be especially good for dance." There is wheelchair access to the stage and balcony.

A large rehearsal room is available for functions and there is a glass-fronted studio space for an artist-in-residence. The latter is not for a recluse, however, as it is in full view of the street. Upstairs is another, smaller performance venue, which can be divided to create two intimate spaces, one of which has a sprung wooden floor and is lined with mirrors, making it useful for dance rehearsals.

The building, which took about a year to construct, was designed by David O'Connor, Fingal's county architect. "A lot of research was undertaken before any bricks were put down," says Chungh. The project cost £4.2 million, half of which came from Fingal County Council, with roughly a quarter each from the Cultural Development Incentive Scheme, which draws on EU-Structural Funds, and from fund-raising by Draiocht's very active board.

She pays tribute to the support of the county council. "They have been very committed all along to providing an arts centre to service the area. Dublin 15 has a very active arts community, involved in music, dance and visual arts, and we did an outreach project last year to find out what people wanted."

Although Draiocht's location, across the road from fast-food outlets and clothing chains, is not what anyone could call bohemian, it is visible and accessible to the many shoppers who use the Blanchardstown Centre. "Three hundred thousand people come to the centre every week," she says, "and if growth in this area keeps increasing at the current rate, we'll be bigger than Waterford city."

Chungh, who has been in her job since December - "we put on our first show the following month," she recalls - is in the throes of programming next year. She finds that the growth of regional performance venues has not been matched by the number of touring productions. Hence the need for a proactive approach.

"Only 16 companies in Ireland tour. That isn't enough. I want to present a quality product which will appeal to our specific audience. Two years ago, it was discovered that half of the people in the area were under 15. A lot of elderly people live here. There are the millionaires in Castleknock and the people in disadvantaged communities. We have to provide an access point for all of them."

She has commissioned a playwright, is negotiating with two others to write for younger people, is looking into a co-production with a local writer and frequently consults other regional venues to see "whether we are interested in inviting the same companies" - Draiocht was the Irish co-ordinator for Northern Broadsides' current tour of The Merry Wives Of Windsor and King John by William Shakespeare.

Draiocht has also started hosting puppet shows on Saturday afternoons. "You can park, bring the children to a show for 45 minutes, eat and do your shopping," says Chungh.

Only 30 per cent of the centre's running costs are covered by the Arts Council and Fingal County Council. "I'd love to get a balance of 50-50," says Chungh. "We're going to have to start looking for sponsorship."

But in a previous job, for which she refurbished and relaunched a commercial theatre, there was no support funding whatsoever, so she has lived through the "scary" business of keeping an enterprise afloat.

She was general manager of the Cochrane Theatre in central London for seven years; although it was on the edge of the West End, it did not have a West End agenda. "We brought in innovative, cutting-edge theatre. We did well, attracting a committed younger audience, many of them university students, for physical theatre and mixed-media art work. It also became an alternative-comedy venue."

Before that, she devised the programme for Riverside Studios in Hammersmith; the west London arts centre is very similar to Draiocht. Chungh, who hails from India, was educated in England and studied stage management at the Guildhall School of Music &Drama, which is based at the Barbican.

She recalls working as production manager for the late lamented Charabanc Theatre Company during the 1980s. "Ireland has changed since then. There was hardly any dance or physical theatre. There were hardly any good touring venues. Now Irish art has a good international profile, and Dublin is a multicultural European city. In Blanchardstown, for example, we have a large Bosnian community."

But there are still many people who have never walked into an arts centre. Draiocht's open-access programme invites school and community groups to see a show, peruse an art exhibition, have a cup of coffee and simply "feel comfortable in an arts environment". Those who come are pleasantly surprised, she says. "I get the sense they'll be back." Already, the community is very supportive of events, especially exhibitions, and any performances by local groups are sold out.

The outreach education officer is Emer McGowan, who was formerly executive director of Chungh has recruited other experienced practitioners to make up her 10 staff. Among them are PR manager Madeline Boughton, who used to be head of marketing at the Abbey, development director Janice McAdam, who used to be head of public affairs at Project Arts Centre, and visual-arts officer Carissa Farrell, who used to be national programmer for IMMA. And, last but not least, Tony O Dalaigh, who "was working here as a one-man band before I came," says Chungh. "He has stayed on for a short while as a consultant, and his support has lent quality to the project."

Finally, a personal question. Do Chungh and her husband spend all their hours discussing arts management? She smiles and shakes her head. "It's important to have a home life. I love working in the arts, but I don't take work home with me. We have two small children who are too busy asking us what Noddy had for breakfast."