Dáil Éireann Debate, Monday - 11 September 2023
810. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media the estimated full-year cost of extending the basic income for artists to all those working in the arts who would be eligible; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39414/23]
View answerThe Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) pilot was a key priority for me as Minister with responsibility for arts and culture. Covid highlighted both the precarious nature of working in the arts and the importance of the arts for us all. The BIA is a support to help artists develop self-sustaining self-employed creative practices.
There are no current data providing exact measures for the number of people working in the arts. However, there were 8,209 eligible applications received for the Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme. To pay each eligible applicant a weekly amount of €325 would cost approximately €139 million per year. To extend this beyond those who met the eligibility criteria would increase the cost further.
The BIA pilot is a research project consisting of a longitudinal study with six monthly surveys. Survey data will be compared against a baseline survey which took place before payments began to the cohort of 2,000 eligible applicants who were chosen at random. The ambition of the pilot is to assess the impact of providing the security of a basic income, on artists and creative arts workers and on their ability to increase their earnings from their creative practice as a self-employed artist/creative.
The scheme and research programme we are conducting will provide a significant evidence base to inform future Government policy in the arts and has the potential to change the landscape of the arts in Ireland and how we fund it.
