The Government is to be asked within the next two weeks to approve the development of a £35 million National Academy for the Performing Arts.
The Minister for Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, is to bring a memorandum to Cabinet before Christmas proposing that the academy be based at Dublin City University, with some disciplines to be based in Limerick and Cork.
It is proposed the academy will incorporate the Irish World Music Centre at the University of Limerick, while the Firkin Crane Centre, Cork, will provide undergraduate courses in professional dance.
The establishment of a National Academy for the Performing Arts was proposed by Fianna Fail in opposition and was promised in the Programme for Government.
The academy will be responsible for developing education and training in all performing art forms and will provide a national qualification certification framework.
It will have undergraduate and postgraduate courses and training for primary and post-primary teachers aimed at encouraging the performing arts in schools.
The academy will concentrate on all forms of music, dance, and theatre, including directing and acting. The Royal Irish Academy of Music degree courses will transfer to the new academy, which will be run by the Department of Education. However, it will operate independently of Dublin City University.
Initially, Ms de Valera and the Minister for Science and Education, Mr Martin, favoured basing the academy at Earlsfort Terrace.
A Government source told The Irish Times that both Ministers still favoured taking over this site and establishing a cultural and artistic centre there.
Last year the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, gave his backing for a Centre of the Performing Arts at Earlsfort Terrace and announced the establishment of an interdepartmental committee to look at the project's feasibility and its implications for UCD, still the major occupier of the Earlsfort Terrace site.
In May, Ms de Valera commissioned the head of research and development at the Guildhall School of Music and Dance in London, Mr Peter Renshaw, to compile a report on the proposed academy.
He was asked to look at the scope and content for the academy; the area of immediate and longer-term specialisation appropriate to the academy; the process to be adopted to achieve the preferred model; and the potential, if any, for the rationalisation of existing resources.
Mr Renshaw looked at the Earlsfort Terrace site but concluded a site at DCU in Glasnevin would be more cost-effective because the academy would benefit from facilities there.
The splitting of the academy to centres outside Dublin is likely to be welcomed by Prof Micheal O Suilleabhain, the Chair of Music at the University of Limerick, who earlier this year called for the "exciting and dynamic developments in the field of performing arts" outside Dublin to be recognised.