The Arts Council is considering setting up an international office to promote Irish art abroad. Such an office could also serve to expose Irish audiences to international art.
The council has formed a committee, chaired by Cork-based artist and council member Ms Maud Cotter, to explore the possibility.
Most European countries have an agency to look after their cultural profile abroad.
The best-known in Ireland are probably the Instituto Cervantes, the British Council, the Istituto di Cultura Italiana, the Goethe Institute and the Alliance Francaise.
In Ireland, there is only the Cultural Relations Committee of the Department of Foreign Affairs, which has plenary meetings about four times a year.
A detailed case study of a number of state-funded international arts policies, commissioned by the council and published in an internal report, revealed weaknesses in most, however, and the Arts Council is keen not to follow blindly an unsatisfactory international model.
The importance of thinking of the arts in an international context is a matter of urgent concern to the Arts Council's director, Ms Patricia Quinn.
Whereas in the past, the council has concentrated on the domestic careers of artists, Ms Quinn said this no longer made sense, as artists work in a global market. Sending art out of Ireland is not where it ends, however. She mentioned the example of Enterprise Ireland, which brings buyers in to look at Irish crafts.
This might be a useful model to follow in bringing in critics to look at Irish art. She is also keen that an international office would work to open up Irish audiences to international art.
This is a more detailed brief than that of the Cultural Relations Committee - of which Ms Quinn is a member. It allocates funding, this year about £500,000, towards the cost of sending Irish art abroad.
Whether the Arts Council's proposed agency would take over the work of the committee is an obvious question, but not one on which Ms Quinn was prepared to be drawn.