Minister for Arts and Culture Patrick O’Donovan will seek funding to “extend and expand” the basic income scheme for artists, which is due to expire this summer.
A pilot scheme, under which 2,000 artists have been paid €325 a week, has been operating for the last three years but is due to conclude in August.
Artists’ groups have been lobbying for its extension, citing considerable anxiety in the sector over the future of the scheme.
It is understood the Minister will push for the scheme to be retained and for its scope to be broadened. More than 9,000 artists applied to join the scheme at its outset in 2022 and 2,000 were selected to receive the no-strings-attached weekly income.
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It costs the department €35 million per year, so the budgetary implications of a large expansion are significant. The total exchequer budget for spending on arts and culture is about €300 million a year.
Within the arts community, the scheme has been regarded as a success. In a report published on Monday academic Dr Jenny Dagg found the basic income “significantly impacts the subjective experience of financial uncertainty in the lives of recipients”.
She found it “reduced anxiety around making ends meet” and “increased time as a resource for creative pursuits”. It also “resulted in greater artist autonomy” and “recipients articulate greater self-efficacy”.
“They feel validated, empowered and confident to exert personal agency within their creative profession and their broader social relationships,” the report found.
The report also found that the payment makes recipients “feel legitimate and validated ... and that being an artist is now a valid and valued profession”.
If the scheme is not continued, the report found, artists worry “they will return to precarious work situations which will once more limit their time and energy for their own creative practice”.
Mr O’Donovan said he was “heartened by the responses of the basic income recipients in this paper”.
He said all evaluations of the scheme have shown it has been “an effective support for the artists in receipt of it”.
He said he would “evaluate the data from the pilot and then bring proposals to Government about next steps”.
However, sources with knowledge of his views say Mr O’Donovan will press for a continuation and expansion of the scheme, which would require additional funding from the Department of Public Expenditure, as part of the normal budgetary process.
