CONCERNS are growing among the more publicly flamboyant of our artistic brethren because no Irish commissioner for Expo 98 has yet been appointed. Remember Expo 92 in Seville? Macnas's triumph with Gulliver? Maria Page's and Siamsa Tire dancing to Bill Whelan's Seville Suite, the spark which lit the fire of Riverdance?

Next year's bash is in another magnificent Iberian city, Lisbon, but there may be no call for extra sunglasses among the Irish arts community, because the official deadline for the appointment of a commissioner by the appropriate Government department - probably Foreign Affairs - is tomorrow.

This mess is another byproduct of the fact that we still don't have a cultural touring agency, even though the White Paper on Foreign Policy called for it, as did the Arts Council's Arts Plan.