Background information

A key recommendation from the Arts and Culture Taskforce report was to pilot a Basic Income scheme for a three-year period in the in the arts, culture, audio-visual and live performance and events sectors.

The Government has launched a new pilot scheme, ‘Basic Income for the Arts’ which aims to address the income instability faced by those working in the sector. The aim of the scheme is also to underpin recovery in the arts and culture sector following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pilot will research the impact a basic income would have on artists. It will run over the 3-year period up to 2025.

Content of measure

Under the scheme, participants will receive a payment of €325 a week.

Eligible applicants must be aged 18 or over and tax compliant. Eligible applicants are:

• Practicing artists
• Creative arts workers
• Recently trained applicants

For the purpose of the pilot, 2,000 eligible applicants will be selected to participate. These will be selected in an anonymised random sampling process.

The pilot scheme will continue over a period of three years (2022-2025) and will research the impact of a basic income on artists and creative arts workers.

The pilot programme will collect and analyse data from the recipients of the basic income and a control group throughout the pilot.

The Minister allocated €25 million as part of Budget 2022 to provide for the launch of the pilot scheme.

Use of measure

Originally, more than 9,000 applicants applied for the pilot scheme. Approximately 2,000 eligible applicants will be chosen at random to participate.

According to the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media: "Over 9,000 applications were made under the scheme with over 8,200 assessed as eligible and included in a randomised anonymous selection process. The group of 2,000 grant participants includes representatives from all art forms, age groups, ethnicities and counties. This includes 707 visual artists, 584 musicians, 204 artists working in film, 184 writers, 173 actors and artists working in theatre, 32 dancers and choreographers, 13 circus artists and 10 architects. 3% or 54 of those selected work through the Irish language."

In May 2024, an impact assessment on the first year of application of Basic Income for the Arts (BIA), was published by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. The key findings of this report are:

• BIA recipients spend on average almost 8 weekly hours more on their creative practice than the control group.
• Namely, compared to the control group, BIA recipients spend on average 3.5 weekly hours more making work, more than 2 weekly hours on research and experimentation, more than half an hour weekly on training, and more than 1 hour weekly on management and administration.
• Compared to the control group, BIA recipients invest on average €550 more monthly in their practice, namely on equipment and materials, advertising and marketing, workspaces, and work travel. This extra spending is almost 40% of participants’ BIA monthly payment.
• BIA recipients are on average 15 percentage points less likely to have been unable to work in the arts compared to the control group. They are also 13 percentage points less likely to name low pay as a reason for not being able to work in the arts, and 8.6 percentage points less likely to list lack of jobs or clients as a reason for not being able to work in the arts.
• BIA recipients spend on average 2.7 weekly hours less than the control group working in another sector.
• BIA recipients are over nine percentage points more likely to be able to sustain themselves through arts work alone compared to the control group.
• Life satisfaction, measured on a scale of 1 to 10, is more than half a point higher for BIA recipients compared to the control group. BIA recipients have increased their leisure time by almost one hour per week on average compared to the control group.
• BIA recipients are on average 6 percentage points less likely to have felt downhearted or depressed, and over 8 percentage points less likely to have experienced anxiety compared to the control group.
• BIA recipients are on average 18.8 percentage points less likely to have difficulty making ends meet compared to the control group.
• The Enforced Deprivation Rate, as measured by the CSO, declined on average by 20.2 percentage points for BIA recipients compared to the control group.
• BIA recipients experienced a decline in material deprivation across 10 out of 11 SILC indicators, meaning that they are more likely to be able to afford basic necessities compared to the control group. The decline ranges from -4 to -19.6 percentage points, depending on the item.
• BIA recipients are 7.7 percentage points more likely to have completed new works in the previous six months compared to the control group. On average, they have completed 3.6 pieces of work more than the control group.
• No statistically significant impacts have been found on the prevalence of unpaid work, the average price of commissions, the likelihood to apply for arts funding, or the prevalence of artistic residencies.

Target groups

Workers	Businesses	Citizens
Particular professions	Does not apply to businesses	Does not apply to citizens

Actors and funding

Actors	Funding
National government	National funds

Social partners

Social partners' role in designing the measure and form of involvement:

	Trade unions	Employers' organisations
Role	No involvement	No involvement
Form	Not applicable	Not applicable

Social partners' role in the implementation, monitoring and assessment phase:

• No involvement
• Main level of involvement: N/A

Involvement

Unknown.

Views and reactions

No information.

Sectors and occupations

Sources

• 10 February 2022: New scheme to pay 2,000 artists a basic income for three years (www.irishexaminer.com)
• 05 April 2022: Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Scheme: Your questions answered (www.gov.ie)
• 15 April 2022: Basic Income for the Arts (www.gov.ie)
• 21 May 2022: More than 9,000 artists apply for universal basic income scheme (www.irishtimes.com)
• 08 September 2022: Groundbreaking Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme grants awarded (www.gov.ie)
• 13 September 2022: Artists hopeful €105m basic income pilot will lead to sector-wide rollout (www.irishtimes.com)
• 10 June 2024: Basic Income for the Arts - Impact Assessment (First Year) (assets.gov.ie)