Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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775. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of artists deemed eligible for the basic income for the arts scheme (including the 2,000 availing of it) in each of the years 2020-2024, in tabular form. [10636/25]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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776. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of writers deemed eligible for the basic income for the arts scheme; and the number of those availing of it in each of the years 2020 to 2024, in tabular form. [10637/25]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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778. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if he will confirm that writers who receive the basic income for artists scheme can also apply for (and if successful, receive) the literature bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland. [10639/25]

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 775, 776 and 778 together.

The Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) pilot research scheme was the number one recommendation of the Arts & Culture Recovery Taskforce out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The scheme opened for applications and the selection of recipients was made in 2022. Therefore there was no intake of applicants or selection of recipients in the other years referred to in the question.

Applicants were requested to select an artform when applying (rather than a specific practice / medium). The category most relevant to "writers" was "literature" as set out in the figures below.

Under the artform of Literature, there were 716 eligible applications for scheme. Of those, 184 were selected for the payment when the selection was made in 2022. As the pilot is a 3-year research scheme, the same cohort of recipients remain on the scheme from 2022 - 2025. Therefore, there were no additional selections in 2023 or 2024.

Due to attrition, the total recipient cohort now numbers 1972. This includes 180 artists and creative arts workers remaining who list Literature as their artform receiving the payment. It may be noted that the number listed here (184*) is those who listed Literature on their application form. Following this, when submitting the surveys which are a required part of the research scheme, two further recipients listed their artform as Literature. Therefore, while three Literature recipients have left or passed away in each of the years 2023 and 2024, we retain 180 Literature recipients at this time.

The Arts Council are statutorily independent in relation to their grant making functions under the Arts Act 2003 but I understand that BIA is not taken into account when awarding Arts Council grants or bursaries.