Ireland garnered international headlines this month when Minister for Arts Patrick O’Donovan announced that the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) trial established by his predecessor Catherine Martin would be put on a permanent footing. There have been basic income trials elsewhere, but this is the first permanent scheme of its kind anywhere. There were articles about this in The Guardian, CNN, the BBC. The UK Independent asked: “Wuthering Heights is just another example of the poshification of the arts. Does Ireland have the answer?”
O’Donovan sees the scheme as a powerful statement about Irish identity: “In order for this country to separate itself from the rest of the English-speaking world, we have to look at our cultural base and say we are different. We weren’t a colonising force. We weren’t an imperial force. We do value multilateralism. We do value co-operation … Artistic output can be a great vehicle for the small guy.”
The trial was originally proposed by the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce established to help struggling artists at the height of the Covid crisis and was launched by Martin very shortly afterwards. It gave 2,000 eligible artists of all kinds €350 a week for three years (the scheme was subsequently extended by six months). Irish culture is regularly rolled out by our Government and institutions to attract both tourists and international investment. And Irish art is currently seeing a wave of international success: with artists such as CMAT and Kneecap, Oscar nominees such as Jessie Buckley, Oscar winner Cillian Murphy and Booker winners like Paul Lynch.
In reality, says Carla Rogers, a member of the steering committee for the National Campaign for the Arts (NCFA), more than 56 per cent of artists and arts workers experience enforced deprivation (that’s three times the rate in the general population).
“Artists in Ireland experience the highest deprivation and precarity. You can see people who seem like they’re doing great.
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