{"id":105096,"date":"2025-10-06T12:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T12:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/105096\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T12:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T12:00:08","slug":"numerous-countries-express-interest-in-governments-basic-income-for-artists-pilot-scheme-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/105096\/","title":{"rendered":"Numerous countries express interest in Government\u2019s basic income for artists pilot scheme \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A number of countries have expressed an interest in Ireland\u2019s basic income for the arts scheme, a pilot project Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> has confirmed he wants to make permanent.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Donovan said he will introduce proposals for a permanent scheme, \u201cassuming funding for a successor is secured\u201d, in Tuesday\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

The pilot project, introduced by former minister for arts Catherine Martin<\/a>, was launched in April 2022 to run for three years to support artists and creative arts workers with a \u20ac325-a-week payment to 2,000 eligible participants selected by lottery. Mr O\u2019Donovan extended it to February 2026.<\/p>\n

Officials from Australia, Wales, South Korea, Canada, Norway, Lithuania, Estonia, \u201cnorthern European arts councils and the Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU<\/a>\u201d have sought briefings on the scheme, the Minister said. <\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, our officials met with Jane Hutt, member of the Welsh Senedd and cabinet secretary for social justice, to discuss the strengths and challenges of the income pilot.\u201d<\/p>\n

A public consultation resulted in 17,000 submissions, with 97 per cent in favour of the scheme\u2019s retention. A cost-benefit analysis by Alma Economics found that for every \u20ac1 invested, society receives \u20ac1.39 in return, including more than \u20ac100 million in social and economic benefits. It also found that recipients\u2019 arts-related income increased by more than \u20ac500 per month on average, the Minister said.<\/p>\n

He added that cost-benefit analysis \u201cwas circulated to colleagues in the Department of Public Expenditure\u201d and \u201ccommunications with the Department of Social Protection have been ongoing through the pilot\u201d.<\/p>\n

Raising the issue in the D\u00e1il last week, Sinn F\u00e9in arts spokesman Aengus \u00d3 Snodaigh asked if the 2,000 people currently on the scheme would continue to receive funding or if it would it involve a totally new cohort. He also asked if it would be extended to include more eligible artists.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How Ireland\u2019s landmark \u20ac325-a-week arts scheme changed my life \u2013 I\u2019ve never taken it for grantedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWill it be a new scheme? Will it be totally reworked? Will it be an extension of the current scheme?\u201d he asked, also highlighting the difficulties experienced by disabled artists on the scheme, with the loss of medical cards and disability allowance.<\/p>\n

Social Democrats TD Sin\u00e9ad Gibney said artists she had spoken with \u201clive in this uncertainty right now regarding what will happen. We need some certainty.\u201d <\/p>\n

She said \u201cthere are so many other groups in society who would benefit from a basic income. I am thinking of small farmers, for example, carers, lone parents and disabled people.\u201d <\/p>\n

They needed to think about this \u201cif we want to get the best value out of a pilot\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Minister replied: \u201cI will stick with artists for the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Donovan said any successor scheme will be predicated, first, on a funding source. \u201cThe quantum of the funding source will then determine the number of people that will be able to access it, again, having had discussions with the Department of Social Protection and others.\u201d<\/p>\n

A \u201ccomprehensive research programme\u201d underpinned the pilot project. It found that recipients were \u201csix percentage points more likely to have worked in the arts in the previous six months\u201d than artists not participating.<\/p>\n

Beneficiaries \u201cspend on average 11 weekly hours more on their creative practice; and are 14 percentage points more likely to have completed new works in the previous six months, on average, completing 3.9 pieces of work more than the control group\u201d. <\/p>\n

In seeking support for the scheme Mr O\u2019Donovan said the department\u2019s engagement on the issue \u201cis focused on assessing people\u2019s views but also drilling home the value of the scheme, not just to the individual artist but to society and the Government as well. We will continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A number of countries have expressed an interest in Ireland\u2019s basic income for the arts scheme, a pilot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,42426,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,36103,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-105096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-department-of-public-expenditure-and-reform","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-patrick-o-donovan","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}