Weekly income of 325 euros for artists will ‘set Ireland apart’ – minister

A scheme offering artists a set weekly income for a three-year period will “set Ireland apart” from other countries in how it values creativity, a minister has said.

In 2022, a pilot was launched in Ireland trialling a basic income of 325 euros for 2,000 artists.

Artists applied for the scheme and were assessed for their eligibility before 2,000 were chosen by a randomiser software.

An analysis of that pilot found that for every euro invested, society received 1.39 euros in return.

It also found that while the total cost for the pilot from 2021 to 2025 was around 114 million euros, this was offset by nearly 37% through tax revenues and savings in welfare payments.

In Budget 2026, Minister for Arts and Culture Patrick O’Donovan secured 18.27 million euros in funding to make the scheme permanent.

The Basic Income for the Arts scheme (BIA), which is hoped to be available from September, will operate in three-year cycles to select 2,000 artists for the 325-euro payment.

Artists can apply for one cycle every six years, so if an artist is selected for the 2026–2029 cycle, they will not be eligible for the payment in the next cycle but can apply after that.

Launching the permanent scheme at Bewley’s Cafe in Dublin city, Mr O’Donovan said the scheme was a “gigantic step forward” and “a start” that he hoped they could build on.

He said: “I’m delighted to be the minister, for the first time in the history of the State, to be able to say that 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.”

Mr O’Donovan said that while at the Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris last week and in Canada the week before, audiences were “absolutely agog” upon hearing about the basic income scheme.

He said: “This is a start – and I didn’t put in the memorandum to the Government this morning because I didn’t want the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to be put on life support just yet – but it is a start, and it is a start that I hope as minister over the next couple of years to be able to grow on.”

Asked by reporters why the number of artists being selected and the amount being paid had not been increased, Mr O’Donovan said it was due to the amount of funding made available and that he would like to see both increased.

“The reason that it’s been started at 2,000 is because that’s the budget envelope that we got from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for a full calendar year,” he said.

“But I hope to be able to grow that over the next couple of years, and that will obviously involve negotiations between myself and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and our department officials.

“But it is an aspiration of mine over the lifetime of the Government, over the next four to five years, to try and increase that number, because I can see very clearly from the metrics just how important it is.”

Asked about whether issues with the scheme where artists with disabilities had their welfare supports cut if they accepted the basic income, Mr O’Donovan said the Department of Social Protection assesses it as income from self-employment, so “the situation there remains”.

He said that it was a time in the world when artists were “afraid to be critical of the government”.

Mr O’Donovan said: “I don’t care what artists or the cultural sector say about the Government or anything like that, because whatever they say, whatever they do when it comes to politics, is a sign of the strength of our democracy and is a sign of the strength of our maturity as a country.

“Because if the world ever needed people to be creative, to be different, to stand out from the fold, it is now.”

He said that while Ireland does not have “a big military, thank god”, his next project would be “cultural diplomacy” and said the work of Culture Ireland was “soft diplomacy at its best”.

Mr O’Donovan added: “I think that Ireland has outshone an awful lot of countries in the last number of months, in particular when it comes to the small, little country having a great voice.”