Ireland’s basic income for the arts scheme becomes permanent

Ireland is creating a scheme that will give artists a weekly income in the hope of reducing their need for alternative work and boosting their creativity.The Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) initiative will provide €325 (£283) a week to 2,000 eligible artists based in the Ireland" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="3366" data-entity-type="location">Republic of Ireland in three-year cycles.The culture minister, Patrick O’Donovan, said at the launch in Dublin on Tuesday that it was the first scheme of its kind in the world. “This is a gigantic step forward that other countries are not doing,” he said.The scheme was “a start” and hopefully would be expanded, O’Donovan said. “For the first time in the history of the state we now have, on a permanent basis, a basic income structure that will really revolutionise and, in many ways, set Ireland apart from other countries with regard to how we value culture and creativity.”The permanent scheme follows a trial that ran from 2022 to 2025 to help artists during Covid pandemic shutdowns. New York and San Francisco had similar pilot schemes but Ireland is believed to be the first country to make one permanent.The pilot, for which saw 2,000 artists were randomly selected from 8,000 applicants, lowered the likelihood of artists experiencing enforced deprivation and reduced their levels of anxiety and reliance on supplementary income, a study found.The scheme recouped more than its net cost of €72m through increases in arts-related expenditure, productivity gains and reduced reliance on other welfare payments, according to a government-commissioned cost-benefit analysis.Peter Power, a member of the National Campaign for the Arts steering committee, said it was a real-world test of what happened when people were given stability instead of precarity. “Artists on the scheme spent more time creating and less time trapped in unrelated jobs just to survive, and many became better able to sustain themselves through their work alone,” he said.A more vibrant arts sector brought myriad benefits such as greater economic activity, improved mental wellbeing, critical thinking and innovation, Power added.Under eligibility rules, artists can receive support for three out of every six years. An artist selected for the 2026-29 cycle must skip the next cycle but can reapply for the following one.Guidelines about the scheme, which has an initial budget of €18.27m (£16m), will be published in April. Applications for the cycle that begins in 2026 will open in May, with payments starting September and continuing until September 2029. Applicants are to be randomly selected.Jenny Dagg, a Maynooth University sociologist who studied the scheme, said it was a win for all but noted that eligible artists could not live solely on the weekly payments, which were considered supplementary income.Artists have welcomed the scheme but said they still faced a cost of living and housing crisis. Rents in Dublin have doubled since 2013, forcing many young people to continue living with their parents.