Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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82. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of artists in County Carlow who are in receipt of the basic income for the arts pilot scheme. [8409/23]

Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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115. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of artists in counties Cavan and Monaghan that are in receipt of the basic income for the arts scheme. [8622/23]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 82 and 115 together.

The Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) pilot is 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 ways in which to help the arts sector recover post pandemic. I was very pleased to have been able to deliver on this recommendation.

Payments to recipients began at the end of October last. 2,000 recipients are now being paid €325 a week for three years.

The pilot will research, over a three-year period, the impact of a basic income style payment on artists and creative arts workers. I have established the scheme very firmly as a research project so that an evidence base can be developed around the impact of the payment which will inform future Government policy in relation to how Ireland supports her artists. The main research will be a longitudinal study with six monthly surveys. Survey data will be compared against a baseline survey which took place before payments began.

Over 9,000 applications were made under the scheme with over 8,200 assessed as eligible according to the published guidelines for the scheme. Eligible applications were then included in a randomised anonymous process to select the 2,000 BIA recipients and the control group of 1,000 participants. This process was overseen by EY acting as an independent verifier.

The 2,000 recipients include representatives from all art forms, age groups, ethnicities and counties.

16 recipients of the Basic Income payment stated on their application that they are from county Carlow.

21 recipients of the payment stated on their application that they are from county Cavan and 14 are from county Monaghan.

The BIA makes a strong statement at home and abroad about the value that Ireland as a nation places on artistic practice both for its intrinsic value and in terms of our personal and collective wellbeing, and also in terms of its importance to our identity and cultural distinctiveness on the global stage.

The Government wants to give recognition to the value of the arts and the role of creative practice in Irish society. I believe that the Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme is a once in a generation, transformational measure in the funding of the arts in Ireland.