The arts, our heritage, offshore islands, the Gaeltacht - all worthy causes. But there would be no need for the Minister in charge of these areas to be an obstreperous type. The Minister could do a good job just by being meek and mild, touchy-feely, a sort of cultural equivalent of the President's role.

But while Sile de Valera is unlikely to refer to her own Department as "Angola" a la Brian Cowen, she is focused overwhelmingly on the tangible, the quantifiable, even the grubby, financial end of it all.

Aside from the day-to-day work on the Gaeltacht, the canals, the thousands of heritage sites, the state of the islands, Ms de Valera is churning out Bills for the Dail on digital television, and the rights to screen top sports events. She must decide how best to subsidise the film industry, if there should be a licence fee, and, if there is, how much of it RTE should get.

She is also the one who has not blinked in the behind-the-scenes negotiations with the Department of Finance over spending on the arts - amounts that have risen 30 per cent, to £28 million, since she took the job in 1997.

About this, she is not boastful: "We have come from a very low base - our spending on the arts would still be lower than many other European countries - and what I am endeavouring to do is increase those monies."

Funding for the arts in the Republic flows from the Government and the National Lottery through the Arts Council. The Arts Council has just put together its second Arts Plan, aimed at developing a wide variety of areas in the years ahead. Ms de Valera says she will put the document before the Cabinet next month.

Already before the Dail is her Major Events Television Coverage Bill, which aims to ensure that the public can continue to watch the most important sporting contests on ordinary television.

"My whole concept is to protect the major cultural and sporting events from pay-per-view," she says. "I will be asking for a consultation with the Minister for Tourism and Sport and with the general public - there is no point me indulging my own sporting prejudices and providing a list [of events] that suits only myself."

From a business point of view, Ms de Valera must walk a fine line here. Already, the GAA has expressed concern that the proposed law could deny it the right to get the best price for the television rights to its games.

She has sought to assure event organisers that she does not want to interfere with this right, but suggests also that "it must be recognised that the citizen has rights too, and these must be safeguarded".

Another area of potential financial conflict lies in subsidies to the film industry, and the fate of the Section 481 (formerly Section 35) tax break. It was to run out in 1999, but was extended by Ms de Valera for another year while she set up an industry thinktank to consider how best to help develop the Irish audio-visual sector.

The move, and the uncertainty that now surrounds the tax break, has upset some in the industry, who say producers have had to suspend long-term decisions on film financing.

"I've always been an advocate of Section 35, and it has done great work. But I think an industry can't simply depend on one particular part of the tax code. We have to build a strong indigenous industry here, and it depends on so many other things - on the whole education and training aspect, for example, and other elements," she says.

That group will report back to her "within a matter of weeks", and there will be a Dail debate on the issues.

She says she will fight for the principle that the measure of subsidy to the film industry - and to the arts in general - should be based on more than a job count.

Jobs making films might cost more per head than their IDA Ireland equivalents, but there are less tangible benefits for society through the provision of culture and the effects on tourism and national prestige.

"It is very hard to put an actual figure on that - but when we talk about the arts, we're talking about our whole social fabric," she says. "The film industry, for example, has a very positive knock-on effect, in that it portrays Ireland in a very positive light."

She also says that from a hard, economic perspective, the arts industry is playing its part in the booming economy, with employment in 1998 of more than 22,000 and a turnover of almost £500 million (€635 million) in the Republic. These figures have risen from 14,500 jobs and a turnover of £225 million in 1994.

But the area of Ms de Valera's brief that brings her straight to the centre of a major financial deal is the future of digital television.

The Broadcasting Bill, which she is currently steering through the Oireachtas, will see RTE give its transmission network to a new company, provisionally called Digico, in which the State-owned broadcaster will hold a minority stake. The rest - likely to be between 60 and 70 per cent of the company - will in effect be sold by the Government.

The company is important because it will offer operators far more than extra television channels. The convergence of telecommunications technologies means Digico will bring high-speed Internet access, and other customisable, value-added services, to any household with the right equipment.

"My concern is two-fold; one is that the new company should roll out digital quickly, and two that it is universal," she says. "Other countries in Europe are standing back and saying `Let's see how it develops.' I don't think we have the luxury of that."

The legislation should be passed by the end of the year, and the service rolled out by the middle of next year.

"From my point of view, all of this is culturally-driven, and I think it is important that this is so," she says. "Obviously digitalisation brings on a completely new era of technology - it is a very exciting one and it means great change and great choice. But we have to ensure that our own cultural identity isn't lost in this morass."