Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland – From Pilot to Permanent

by Reinhard Huss | May 27, 2026 | News

Please join us for the eighth and final event in our special series of discussions dedicated to reflecting on what we can learn from the Irish Basic Income for the Arts Pilot and its change to Permanent.

The Government of Ireland ran a Basic Income pilot that began in September 2022 and ended in February 2026.  2000 artists and cultural workers received an unconditional income of €325 weekly for a period of three and half years. This eighth and final session will be an opportunity to check-in with some of the artists involved in the pilot scheme and learn from them about how the pilot affected them and their creative communities. What was the impact of the end of payments in February 2026? What do they think about the new permanent scheme for 2000 artists which will start in September 2026 and the conditions and criteria of application?

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Overview of the Basic Income for the Arts in Ireland pilot

by John Baker, Reinhard Huss | Nov 22, 2025 | News

In September 2020, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media Catherine Martin set up the Arts and Culture Taskforce which was tasked with producing a report on how the arts and culture sector could adapt and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time she was also the deputy leader of the Green Party which is supportive of the Basic Income (BI) concept. The number one recommendation from the task force report Life Worth Living was to pilot a Basic Income scheme for a 3-year period in the in the arts, culture, audio-visual and live performance and events sectors. As part of the National Economic Recovery Plan launched on 1 June 2021, Minister Martin secured a commitment from Government for a Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) Pilot Scheme.

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