Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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226. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the reason that a person (details supplied) who applied for the basic income under the arts pilot scheme earlier this year was not included in the scheme; if it is intended to extend the scheme to further qualified applicants; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [61525/22]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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227. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if all of the approved applicants for the basic income scheme under the arts pilot scheme have taken up the offer of a basic income; the number who applied and the number who were approved; if it is intended to extend the scheme to further applicants; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [61526/22]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 227 and 226 together.

The Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) pilot was a key priority for me as Minister with responsibility for arts and culture. The pilot was the number one recommendation of the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce which I established in 2020 to examine how best to assist the sector to recover post-pandemic.  I was very pleased to have been able to deliver on this recommendation with payments on the scheme now having commenced.

2,000 recipients will be paid €325 a week for three years. 1,000 control group members will be paid €650 per year to engage in the data collection. The scheme will cost €35m per year (€105m in total). The scheme is a pilot research scheme and is operating within a limited budget and it is not possible to fund more than 2,000 participants on the pilot scheme. 

My Department received just under 9,100 applications for the scheme. Just over 8,200 of these were eligible, and all of these, including the application of the person referred to, were included in the anonymous randomised selection process to select the 2,000 recipients and the 1,000  control group members.  As set out in the Guidelines for the scheme, eligibility was not a guarantee of a place on the BIA. The selection process was overseen by EY acting as an independent verifier.  

27 applicants who were selected decided not to accept the offer of the BIA grant. Those places were reallocated using a random selection process, overseen by EY. All eligible applicants, including the application referred to, who had not already been selected (including those invited to the control group) were included in this further selection process to fill the places. 

I understand that those who applied and were not successful are disappointed, however, as a pilot scheme the BIA is operating with a limited fund and only 2,000 places were available.  

Research findings on the impact of the pilot on the individuals and their practices, the sector and ecology of the arts in Ireland will form part of the pilot also. While I have no plans to increase the number of participants in the pilot scheme, the research involved will 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.