Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)

All the support that is being given to the basic income for the arts scheme is really appreciated. When trying to get cross-government consensus on a particular scheme, it is heartening to see the number of Deputies and Senators who have given their support to this and for good reason. This scheme was initiated to address the precarious nature of income for people who are trying to derive an income from the arts. It was clearly established early on that by virtue of the precarious nature, many people were either leaving it or certainly not able to maintain a decent quality of life for themselves. As the Deputy knows, the pilot was for three years and is due to end in August of this year. I wanted to continue the pilot until February to give me a chance to get qualitative and quantitative research and reporting that I can use to form part of my budgetary discussions with the Department of public expenditure and reform and the Department of Finance.

As he knows, 2,000 people are on the scheme at the moment at a cost of €35 million annually or €105 million over the three years. I do not have any hard and fast ideas as to what a successor scheme might look like. However, it is my priority to get a successor scheme. I have met representatives of the National Campaign for the Arts and they have enunciated their support, which is also welcome. Various different people will have different views as to how to churn over a new group of people to make sure that it is fair and that everybody gets a bite at it. For instance, if we introduce a new scheme after the budget which I hope we are in a position to do, how can we make sure it is not the same group of people in saecula saeculorum?

Internally, departmental officials have done a good bit of work on this. The quantitative and qualitative report that is available to us clearly shows that when the financial stress, fear and anxiety are removed, we got a better level of output. Recently at the EU Council of the culture ministers, this came up as a live subject with a number of other ministers who would love to be in a position to introduce a similar process in their states but unfortunately are not able to do so due to budgetary constraints.

I am open to suggestions that individual members of the committee might have. I will also engage with the National Campaign for the Arts. It gives me a bit of time because the cut-off date is February. I still have some work to do on the budget with the Secretary General and the assistant secretary with responsibility for the arts to convince the Department of public expenditure and reform to retain the scheme, and that it be not taken as a pilot but otherwise be built into the base. When I have that done, I will have sufficient time to design a replacement on which I will seek input from the committee.