Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The basic income for the arts, BIA, is a pilot scheme, the outcomes of which will inform future policy on the manner in which the State provides supports to artists. The Department expects a high volume of applications and it will not be possible to provide funding to all eligible applicants. The pilot scheme will run over a three-year period and the intention is to research the impact a basic income would have on artists' creative work patterns by providing the opportunity to focus on their practice, recognising the value of the unpaid element of work that goes into creative practice, to minimise the loss of skills from the arts as a result of the pandemic and to contribute to the growth of the sector. The overarching objective of the scheme is to address the earnings instability that can be associated with the intermittent, periodic and often project-based nature of work in the arts. The scheme will research the impact on artists' and creative arts workers' creative practice of providing the security of a basic income, thereby reducing income precariousness.

Funding for the scheme will allow for approximately 2,000 eligible applicants to participate in the pilot research scheme. Selection will be a non-competitive process. Once an applicant satisfies the eligibility criteria he or she will be included in an anonymised random sampling process to determine the pilot recipients from the pool of eligible applicants for the BIA pilot. In addition, up to 1,000 eligible applicants who were not selected to receive the payment will be selected to participate in a control group to facilitate the evaluation of the pilot. Control group participants will respond to the same survey and data requests as those in receipt of the payment to help assess the impact of the payment as compared with those not in receipt of it. As part of the application process, applicants will be asked to indicate if they do not want to participate in the control group. Control group members will be paid two weeks basic income for each year of the pilot scheme to compensate them for the time required to engage in the data collection process.

I am very cognisant of the challenges faced by the arts, culture and live entertainment industry as the sector recovers post pandemic. To this end, a €50 million suite of supports for the live performance sector was delivered in 2022 to provide performance and employment opportunities for artists and crews. I might have a chance to outline those later.

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