Her progress from first floor to basement in 70 Merrion Square has about it something of a royal procession. But once the interview begins, it becomes obvious that she possesses neither airs nor graces.

What she does possess is one of the broadest portfolios of jobs in the public arena, ranging from the arts to the courts, from the plight of crisis pregnancies to the observance of human rights. She is, in this regard, a woman for all seasons, although a less charitable soul might suggest she is merely queen of the quangos.

On the morning of the interview in the offices of the Arts Council . . . where she is chairperson . . . she dined in the company of Kader Asmal in her capacity as a human rights commissioner. The following day she attended a board meeting of the courts service. She serves as chair of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency, and a few years back finished a 10-year stint as director of the Rape Crisis Centre. She is also a member of one of those obscure benchmarking bodies. Along the way, she enjoyed the five minutes of fame that accrues to failed European election candidates, running for Fianna Fail in 1994. While she sounds dyedin-the-wool establishment material, it's reasonable to assume that for a long time she would have been considered a pain in the neck by that same establishment.

Her background is in campaigning work, for equality in general, but women in particular. She keeps coming back to women.

"The new Arts Act brought in the rule that the board of the Council must be half and half genderwise. Other boards are less, like, 'ah well, you've got 40% women and isn't that grand for you'. Not on this one.

It's 50-50. I think it's brilliant. Gender balance is a big area of my life."

The theme runs through all her jobs.

When the recently deceased High Court judge Mella Carroll was retiring, she sent Braiden a note. "She told me to keep up the good work, to lobby for more women judges as we need them, particularly in the High Court."

Braiden doesn't buy the proposition that there is now equality between the sexes.

"Women need role models. Look around you. There aren't enough women anywhere in the workplace except at the lower ends where the scrubbing and cleaning is done, " she says. This, she delivers with a mini dramatic flourish, a gesture which, allied to her girlish charm, is a million miles from the caricature of the archetypal feminist.

Not that what she is saying is anyway militant or radical, merely common sense.

She is, however, rare enough in being a woman who has succeeded yet isn't afraid to keep on bringing up gender inequality.

But is what's sauce for the gander, not also sauce for the much-maligned goose?

One area where the pendulum seems to have swung away from men is family law.

Some say the power here rests with mothers rather than fathers. Horror stories abound. Tales of child sex abuse or domestic violence are alleged in a small minority of instances that owe more to fiction in pursuit of victory rather than fact. Many would have it that some men get a raw deal because of their gender. Braiden doesn't sound sympathetic.

"There is a bit of a backlash out there now, quite a movement saying men suffer violence too. But in terms of women alleging domestic violence falsely, I just don't believe any of it. I'm not saying that women are perfect, there's good and bad in every gender. It all relates back to power." To her mind, power, even on the domestic scene, still resides with men.

Neither does she have much sympathy with the priests who claim they can be victims of false allegations and have their lives ruined by a high-profile removal from a parish after an allegation is made. Braiden doesn't believe children make this stuff up.

And she says she would agree with priests being removed even if the allegation related to an adult female, as opposed to a child.

"I suppose because of my long history working with the victims of rape and adult sex abuse I would be inclined to agree that somebody in a position of power should move away while the case is going on, but it should be made clear that it is not being said that as a result of that the person is guilty."

Her own background would probably horrify the caricature feminist. She was married at 20 and for 15 years moved around the world following her husband's job. She is from Ballymote in Co Sligo, one of four girls and a boy born into a comfortable family. Her passion for equality can be traced back to the hierarchical structures in small town Ireland.

"We were well off by standards in the town, but you could see the difference in school. It always bothered me that some of the other children didn't have books. There were travellers in camps outside the town and I wondered why they didn't go to school. When I asked the nuns would say 'sit down, eat your dinner, do your lessons'.

Basically shut up."

She was in UCD studying social science when she met her husband Sean, who got a job with Aer Lingus. The world was their oyster. They lived in Paris, Spain, Brussels, the Bahamas, Thailand. En route, five children were born.

"I loved it, " she says of the rambling life.

"We were back and forth a lot, living here in between as well. It was difficult for the children alright, chopping and changing."

She adds with rare parental candour that as parents, they didn't give the continuity of education a lot of consideration.

The campaigning instinct was borne on personal misfortune. A bout of German measles during her final pregnancy resulted in her daughter Sinead being born deaf.

Braiden quickly discovered what it meant to struggle against a disability in Ireland.

"I could see straight away the lack of services and how somebody with a disability wasn't catered for. It was an experience.

And like most people I was somebody who knew nothing about deafness."

For anybody with a campaigning gene, the 1980s was fertile territory. Braiden inhabited the fringes of the Anti-Apartheid movement and then found herself nudged toward the Rape Crisis Centre, where she began as a volunteer. Her skills were quickly noticed and she was appointed director.

It was in that role she tilted against the establishment, particularly the courts and government, in pursuing justice for victims. Her tenure coincided with a light being shone into the dark corners of society where sexual violence thrived. Mores, and even expediency, had often meant that savagery went unreported and unpunished previously. Braiden was to the fore in forcing society to at least take out the mirror.

One bugbear at the time was a perceived lack of knowledge around her area on the bench. Since moving inside the tent and onto the board of the Courts Service, some of her views have changed, some remain.

"One thing I do now know is how incredibly hard judiciary work, " she says. "We don't have enough judges. I think there should be more training but one of the problems is weight of work. In every walk of life we need to hone our skills, so maybe there should be moref they don't like the word training, study leave."

Along the way, Fianna Fail came calling.

European election 1994, the party needed something different, a liberal agenda type, one of those wimmin. They handed her a parachute and dropped her into Dublin.

She took leave of absence from the job and bombed at the polls.

"I didn't see myself running for Fianna Fail, I saw it as running for women, " she says. "I suppose I was naive and ignorant about the whole thing but the three-month campaign was the best education I ever got, " she says.

The gig with the Arts Council . . . its primary function is to fund the arts . . . came up two years ago. Her appointment was well received in the sector as she was recognised as somebody with a genuine interest.

Since then, she has moved to modernise.

"As a punter, like most people I never knew what the Arts Council did, " she says.

"All I knew was it loaned out paintings, which we got in my time at the Rape Crisis Centre." She wants to open things up. One plan is to have a glass door fronting the Merrion Square office, opening the shop up to the great unwashed beyond.

The new council also went in search of interested parties to see how things were going arts-wise. A total of 139 meetings were undertaken with local interests and everybody has been happy with the results.

The council now uses the word "partnership" (Ouch! ) for its approach to funding, doing away with the previously perceived hierarchical structure.

The Abbey is in recovery. "The major problem there was lack of funding, but they've a new board and a new Fiach (Mac Conghail) and the whole thing. And you think, 'well, they have to make it now'."

Sustainable funding for the Arts is the over-riding theme of Braiden's tenure. A nice round 100m a year would do the job, she feels, which would be a one-third increase from the current level.

"We think arts in Ireland would be sustainable at that level, " she says. "The government built venues around the country and didn't put specific money into keeping them going. If people don't get sustainable funding, it just won't work."

For herself, she balks at the notion that she has come full circle and is now firmly ensconced in the establishment.

"I don't agree with that, even if it may look like it. I'm still bringing my own independent thinking to everything I do."