"The arts have tended to be the preserve of middle-income, middle-aged and often middle-class people. In a way that has been a strength: there's a ballast there that keeps it going. But one of my responsibilities is to broaden [the demographics] that have access to the arts.

I spent three years at the Department of Social Welfare, and we had 800,000 customers receiving a weekly cheque who have hardly any opportunity to expose themselves to the arts. I'd like to open up that whole world of arts to them, so that they feel they can add to [ the arts] and take from it by enjoying it.

Ultimately, the arts are for everybody. They are human questioning and human existence. They are as much in you, as external to you, and they are deeply personal. Therefore they should belong to everybody, and one of my responsibilities is to ensure that access to the arts is guaranteed to all.

Integrating new communities into our artistic community is one of the biggest challenges: we shouldn't see it as an intrusion but as bringing the richness of [another] culture.

Another important issue is the all-island nature of the arts: with the new political dispensation in Ireland, we need to develop an island artistic culture, and [dispense with] this partitionist view. Access to the arts for elderly people and younger people are also an important issue.

When it's all said and done, the arts are central to society. But like any flower, the arts have to be nurtured and minded and developed. But the arts have to be ever-changing too, just as life is changing. Otherwise they will get left behind."