Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Byrne for raising this today. I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, who cannot be with us today.

The basic income for the arts is a once-in-a-generation policy intervention which has the potential to transform the lives of artists. The scheme is part of a suite of measures that the Minister, Deputy Martin, has introduced to support professional arts practice in Ireland. I am particularly proud of the fact that former Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, said when he became party leader and Taoiseach that he would set about significantly increasing investment in the arts as a key point. We are seeing that come through now, through the resources the Minister, Deputy Martin, has and continues to have.

The basic income for the arts is accompanied by a three-year research programme which started in October 2022 and will continue until the end of the pilot in 2025. The research programme is a unique opportunity to gather data on the sector that we did not have before. In researching impacts on recipients and the ecology of the arts, this pilot scheme has the potential to change the landscape of the arts in Ireland and how we fund it. It will help us to make further progress towards a more evidence-based approach to funding for the arts and to tell a story about the sector based, to a greater extent, on data.

In May, the Minister hosted a conference to discuss the status of the artist in Ireland. It marked the launch of data from the first full year of the basic income for the arts pilot scheme. It was a timely opportunity to bring artists and the broader arts sector together to discuss the challenges facing Irish artists today. The Minister participated in a panel on artists’ supports, including the basic income for the arts, which was a valuable opportunity for her to discuss the pilot with the sector and hear their voices on what can be done to ensure that the policy context for artists is as supportive as it can be.

The newly-published research shows that the basic income for the arts payment is having a consistent positive impact across almost all indicators; affecting practice development, sectoral retention, well-being and deprivation. It is intended that participants remain the same throughout the three-year pilot research scheme. The scheme is a randomised control trial that consists of two groups of randomly selected people.One, which is the treatment group, is receiving the basic income payment, while the other, the control group, is not. Analysis of the results involves a comparison of averages between the two groups. As the groups have similar characteristics at baseline, and are large, any difference arising during the trial can be assumed to have been caused by this policy. The data collected as part of the BIA scheme will help us to make further progress towards a more evidence-based approach to funding for the arts. Data published through the reports is of use to the Department, the Arts Council, local authorities and arts organisations. The existing reports are available on gov.ieand more reports will be published in the coming months as we continue to collect and analyse the data. The Minister, Deputy Martin, cannot presuppose the outcome of future budget negotiations or Government decisions in terms of a continuation of the BIA after the pilot is finished. However, the Minister believes the data so far shows that the intervention is having a positive impact on participants, as the Senator has outlined. The reason the Minister put in place a robust research programme was to provide a clear data-driven evidence-base upon which future Government policy decisions on funding the arts can be taken. While the Minister is very supportive of the BIA, it is too early in the research to fully understand the impact of the scheme, and the pilot will need to be completed to assess the effectiveness of the BIA on those in receipt of it. For example, positive impacts seen early in the research may change or reduce over time, so it is too early to make that decision on the next steps right now.