Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)
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651. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if under the successor scheme to the basic income for arts announced in Budget 2026, for individuals who are in receipt of social welfare payments, including disability allowance and carers allowance will be permitted to retain those payments while participating in the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55097/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Research Scheme 2022 – 2026 is a research programme which has examined, over a three-year period, the impact of a basic income-style payment for artists and creative arts workers. The pilot scheme will run until February 2026.

For those participants in the pilot scheme who are also recipients of a social welfare payment, the Department of Social Protection treats income from the scheme as income from self-employment for the purpose of its various means tests.

This means that where a scheme includes a disregard of a certain amount of income from self-employment, that disregard is applied to income from the pilot scheme.

Budget 2026 has made provision for a future permanent successor scheme to the Basic Income for the Arts pilot, subject to Government approval. The details of this successor scheme have yet to be finalised.

I trust that this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.