With its womb-like, miniature theatre and bright, airy galleries, The Ark, the cultural centre for children in Temple Bar, is one of the most welcoming and imaginative arts centres in the city, but its activities are not as widely known about as they could be. Today, its director, Martin Drury, is launching a 20 per cent discount scheme, to improve access for all children to The Ark. With immediate effect, and for an initial three-year period, there will be a discount of 20 per cent on admission charges to all schools outside Dublin - who might otherwise be off-put by the cost of travelling to Dublin - and to Dublin schools which have been designated as "disadvantaged" by the Department of Education. Drury says he wants to pursue the centre's "twin goals of high-quality arts programming for children and of access for all the arts".

On Saturday and Sunday, The Ark is holding an open weekend for adults, to encourage them to introduce their pupils or offspring to its activities. Highlights for the year ahead include the children's season of the Dublin Theatre Festival (October 6th18th), two visual arts programmes and, next March, a new children's opera, The Pied Piper, composed by John Browne, with a libretto by Johnny Hanrahan.