WHY do we never hear of takeovers, amalgamations, privatisations, alliances, buyouts, share issues and other such wheeling and dealing in the world of the state subsidised arts? Now that the total direct state aid to the arts on the island of Ireland exceeds £40,000,000 a year, if Lottery and other sources are counted - nearly twice as much as Bord Failte, for example, gets, or a quarter of the annual budget for the Industrial Development Authority - would we not expect to hear of at least the odd merger or major international expansion that such capitalisation would inevitably engender in any other sector of business?

Why does the Gate Theatre, for example, which seems to be such a success at purveying what the punters want, not take over The Abbey, which isn't, and either run it or break it up and sell it off for profit to the highest bidder, to let something else take its place, or not, as the case might be? Is it because the National Theatre and the national arts in general are protected from market forces in a way that the national forests or the national bus service or the national telephone system are not?

With all the money that has been poured into Temple Bar, for another example, why have the arts organisations there not been encouraged to diversify into pub or hotel ownership, which are such evident moneyspinners, and to use the profits from booze and beds to underwrite their cultural programmes?

How come, even in these boom times, no art gallery has succeeded in setting up a chain throughout Ireland, or gone into partnership with Dunnes or Quinnsworth to sell art to the masses, or spawned branches in Cork Street or Soho or on the Left Bank? If Irish culture is as good or as popular as our own self mythologising has led us to believe, how come there are no Irish arts centres scattered throughout the world like there are Irish pubs and Irish duty free shops?

Could it be that by and large the cosy system of Arts Council funding actually distrusts and discourages commercial ambition and entrepreneurial risk among what are called its "client organisations"? There has been a lot of lip service to ideas of professionalism in the arts but the underlying culture remains one of dependency because in one way or another all of us who work in the field have been bought by the grants/alms system and dare not demur or criticise for fear of the consequences from the very personalised and gossipy way in which we all know the system works.

However with a new director of the Arts Council/An Comhairle Ealaion, Patricia Quinn, who comes out of Temple Bar Properties by way of what we tend to regard as the "Real World," as opposed to the "World of the Arts," which is by definition "unreal," there must be some hope the arts in Ireland might become more truly businesslike, from the individual artist having the institutional support to run a profitable career to arts centres not afraid to diversify into other forms of moneymaking beyond the licensed beggary of the Arts Councils grant system.

As it is, this Arts Council system, far from encouraging endeavour, actually punishes success by what is called deficit finding, where you actually have to make a loss in order to qualify for the money you were promised in the first place. Breaking even is the name of the game, and what all of us in the arts try to do at the end of the day. If, heaven forbid, you make a profit, your Arts Council grant gets cut, and you are back to square one again.

Because the arts councils themselves do not have to fundraise through sponsorship, merely lobbying government for a larger dole out of funds for what the Chairman of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland recently and revealingly described as their "deserving causes", they have yet to invent a system which rewards resourcefulness by offering matching or what the Americans call "challenge" funds to organisations which increase income by setting more tickets to their shows, paintings off their walls, buns in their teashops, or whatever other services they supply.

While the arts councils have had and have extremely distinguished people serve selflessly on them out of a sense of their "duty", as a whole they are amateurish when it comes to business.

This amateurism combined with volunteerism, in that Arts Council members are not paid more than expenses for their attendance at meetings and events, infects the whole body politic of the arts.

The structures of the Arts Councils replicate themselves in subsidiary bodies they appoint or over which they have influence, so that the boards or arts centres, theatres and other associations tend to consist of the great and the good, artists or art lovers in the main, who are not necessarily the best people to be running businesses.

There is thus a fundamental confusion in the world of the arts between the need for artistic advice and guidance - which should be given by artists and experts in the arts - and business development, which should be given by entrepreneurs and opportunists who would know how to exploit an organisation's resources to generate profits for the support of artistic programmes.

As the Arts Council concentrates more and more power and patronage in its own hands through becoming increasingly proactive and appointing officers to do jobs that might be done better by agencies outside its immediate control, there is a real danger that it will lose sight of the healthy guiding principle it has had to date of keeping actual arts activity at an arm and a leg's length from its administration. As things stand, the Arts Council is the only arts organisation in the country which is growing exponentially. It has doubled its overall budget in the last three or four years, as no theatre or arts centre or other State subsidised arts entity has.

Perhaps the time has come for grants to be given to arts organisations to do all the things that real businesses do, instead of merely supporting artistic worthiness and the greater social good as ends in themselves. Perhaps that would be part of the way to have the arts reach the places recent reports indicate they are not reaching, by making State support contingent on selling to people stuff they actually want, rather than what somebody else thinks might be good for them.