Irish Basic Income Support Scheme For Artists To Be Made Permanent (www.rte.ie) 144
AmiMoJo writes: The Irish Government's basic income scheme for artists is set to become a permanent fixture from next year, with 2,000 new places to be made available under Budget 2026. Minister for Culture Patrick O'Donovan has secured agreement with other government departments to continue and expand the initiative, which had previously operated on a pilot basis. Participants in the scheme receive a weekly payment of $379.50.
The pilot programme, launched in 2022, provided basic income support to 2,000 artists and creative arts workers across Ireland. It aimed to support the arts sector's recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many artists experienced significant income loss due to restrictions on live performances and events. The scheme provides unconditional, regular payments to eligible artists and creative workers, allowing them to focus on their practice without the pressure of commercial viability. It is not means-tested and operates independently of social welfare payments. An independent evaluation of the pilot, published earlier this year, found that recipients reported increased time spent on creative work, reduced financial stress, and improved well-being.
The pilot programme, launched in 2022, provided basic income support to 2,000 artists and creative arts workers across Ireland. It aimed to support the arts sector's recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many artists experienced significant income loss due to restrictions on live performances and events. The scheme provides unconditional, regular payments to eligible artists and creative workers, allowing them to focus on their practice without the pressure of commercial viability. It is not means-tested and operates independently of social welfare payments. An independent evaluation of the pilot, published earlier this year, found that recipients reported increased time spent on creative work, reduced financial stress, and improved well-being.
Welfare Rebranded? (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it much different than an agricultural subsidy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Basic income or welfare? I'm not so opposed in part because I don't live in Ireland and in part because being an artist is work, especially the sales part.
In the USA, we have agricultural subsidies as well as a FUCKTON of subsidies given to oil companies at many points. It shows what a country prioritizes. We prioritize a reliable and consistently priced supply of food and fuel...they want to fund artists...I have no opinions one way or the other, personally. Give an artist $379.50, it's a MUCH better investment than giving Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg a tax break. We can guarantee a higher portion of the investment will get redirected into the local economy when given to regular individuals vs billionaires.
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"I'm Brian...err.....I'm an Artist....and so is my wife!!"
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I produce twice the amount of units of arts per day as the average artist and shall therefor be entitled to double artist pay.
Re: Is it much different than an agricultural subs (Score:2)
Can't wait for it all to crash and you to lose your smugness with your shitcoins
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Hmm.....interesting.
"I'm Brian...err.....I'm an Artist....and so is my wife!!"
Replace "Artist" with "rich white asshole" and you'll see how America is subsidizing the rich already.
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We prioritize a reliable and consistently priced supply of food and fuel.
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NO! We prioritize rich, wealthy, profitable corporations that can afford to buy influence from ~our~ electeds to our detriment. So long as legal bribery, AKA citizens united stands, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] , (equates political donation to the right to petition, or free speech), we the citizens have no chance of getting what we vote for.
Re:Is it much different than an agricultural subsi (Score:4, Insightful)
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IMO, one of our biggest issues is the size of our country. It's not easy to meet with a national representative, be it somebody in the House, the Senate, or the President.
The Senate and the President are not for citizens to access, only States. Citizens are expected to use the House of Representatives. If your Representative is hard to contact, vote them out (or at least that is the theory).
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Ratify Article the First. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Article the Second did get ratified after 200+ plus years as the 27th Amendment so it is theoretically possible.
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Art and cultural activity is a major sector of the US economy. It adds a staggering 1.17 *trillion* dollars to the US GDP. However that's hard to see because for the most part it's not artists who receive this money.
The actual creative talent this massive edifice is built upon earns about 1.4% of the revenue generated. The rest goes to companies whose role in the system is managing capital and distributing. Of that 1.4% that goes to actual creators, the lion's share goes to a handful of superstars --
Re: Is it much different than an agricultural subs (Score:2)
In the USA, we have agricultural subsidies as well as a FUCKTON of subsidies given to oil companies at many points.
So you think we (US Taxpayers) should suspend farming subsidies and watch the cost of domestic food stuffs go up? Interesting.
And please, describe a few of the "FUCKTON" of subsidies the government gives to oil companies that DON'T apply equally to every other company in America? As a reminder, for every gallon of gasoline sold the oil companies profit a few cents, but your local, state, and federal tax collector takes in dollars of taxes - if we punish oil companies to the point they go out of business, th
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Most Basic Income proposals replace Welfare entirely.
I think there is some merit to an idea that there is Basic Income, but you can't get it unless you "do something". Even if that something is create art that nobody wants. This makes the income more valuable to the receiver because they "worked" for it.
I generally thought everybody who wanted to could be hired as a security guard, to patrol the streets and call in anything suspicious they see, and be "paid" with Basic Income (many times more than anybody w
Re: Welfare Rebranded? (Score:2)
That said I would differentiate near-zero value make work from subsidized work where there is a significant benefit of having it done but perhaps we pay more than it's worth. Subsidized work is arguably a win-win to a point. When the work is near zero value you're just destroying that person's time which I would argue is a negative sum game. Personally I think a bare-subsistence UBI Plus
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Yes I think it is a requirement that the work have non-zero value. It's obvious that having a bunch of people standing around watching reduces crime, so that has non-zero value. I'm not sure what to do about the art to make sure its value is non-zero, possibly proof that people collect and keep it, or that organizations decide to display it.
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes "artists" so special?
Everyone else should be outraged.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
because they do something important that nobody thinks you need or wants to pay for.
see: your comment
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If it was important, why would people not pay for it voluntarily?
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any view of the world that supposes humans are rational actors is busticated
it's not even a question, there are only a zillion different ways you can prove that people make choices all the time that are opposed to their own interests
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So therefor the government should take their money and decide for them what type of art they should be investing in? Is that, err, democracy or something like that?
Re: Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
The market is not a reasonable measure of desire for anything other than profit.
Unless you think we all desire ads
Re: Why? (Score:2)
A completely free market inevitably becomes a renter economy.
The irony of your threat of communism is that a free market will mean you will own nothing. In a communist government the government owns everything and in a truly free market economy the industrialists and private equity types own everything.
How are either of these good things? How does either one lift up all of society?
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How does freedom to decide for yourself what you want to spend your money on lead to a renter economy?
Re: Why? (Score:2)
If every place where you spend money engages in renter economy behavior, like creating impossible to repair products or requiring a paid membership fee or subscription, then where will you spend your money? If every property in your preferred neighborhood is bought up by a renter, then what?
The market loves recurring revenue.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Why would I do that if I can make more money doing rental economics?
Where would I get the starting capital to create such a company if the lenders and investors all want me to engage in rental economics?
Re: Why? (Score:2)
A key component of our strategy course is something called Market shaping. That's basically how to collude without technically colluding. The way they phrase it is that you don't want to compete on price because that erodes profits for everybody. Although naive economics would suggest that if there's a market for buying versus renting that market would be fulfilled it's not quite that simple. If renting is more profitable then, as other posters alluded, the people who are renting will have m
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Any step away from this principle is a step towards communism.
"One day we're subsidizing the arts, the next we'll be living under communism!". Is that the stupid you're pushing now?
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Note that the report on the scheme which lead to this decision states that they believe there was a net positive economic benefit, i.e. the extra economic activity generated by it was worth more than the cost of the scheme.
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That is absolutely false, even in a theoretical sense. There are many examples of economic market theories that end in disaster due to the way resources are allocated.
For example: A free market's only stable condition is an absolute monopoly which theory also dictates will not operate optimally
For another example: A free market will allocate resources in a way that promotes Tragedy of the Commons which always leads in collective loss and non-optimal outcomes.
Additionally a concept of value fails on a collec
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If you dislike ads, then pay for the damn app or site you are consuming resources from, and then they will remove the ads.
I do have mod points but I don't think you intended that to be as absolutely hilarious as it is so I'll save my +1 Funny for elsewhere.
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This is a free market. I have no idea why you think it is not. You do realize the government buys tons of things. Guns, cars, uniforms, food, real estate. Because the government picks 2000 artists and purchases their services (does not need to buy the art - they are paying for the art to be done, not to own it - no different than a Research Grant where they do not own the research), it does not affect the free market. Other people can still make art. Private people can buy it.
Why is it that you
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Most of your argument is spot-on, however while Communism is about "preventing private business", Socialism means exactly what you are describing (government doing business and buying stuff). So you are arguing for Socialism.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
"A free and completely voluntarist market is the only real measure of value"
So the only real value is in libertarian fantasies?
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Right, like tv. You pay the cable company and not a single ad in sight. Amazing people even know what they are.
Re: Why? (Score:2)
A free and completely voluntarist market is the only real measure of value, and the only way to optimally allocate resources.
Your dogma is clearly exposed but it's only that: dogma. There is nothing optimal in the resource allocation of a free market, mainly for two reasons in my opinion. Disclaimer: I have conducted research in optimisation, but I am not very knowledgeable in game theory.
The first reason is that what is optimal for one company is not optimal for the system as a whole. This one alone requires books to explain properly, so let's just look at an example. If two competitors collaborate, they might end up being able
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Leaving aside that this scheme is supporting an industry that got properly fucked by COVID and is still recovering now, you're assuming human beings act in their collective interests. They don't. They act in their self interest. They look for the cheapest thing, and then they bitch and moan when the things they enjoyed but never invested money in disappear upon the realisation that everyone else thought just like them.
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Art is an example of something that is important but also so diffuse that few people are willing to pay for it individually. Like clean air or largely theoretical scientific research that eventually leads to marketable new technologies and medical treatments.
It makes sense for societies to fund it for the benefit of everyone. Like with R&D, most art isn't that profound and may end up having little value by itself, but that's the nature of the thing - you have to fund all of it to get the rare but signif
Re: Why? (Score:2)
Cathedral and bazaar problem. The benefit of art is to the community, but the burden of purchase typically falls on an individual. That leads to the demand for art being too diffuse to generally support a vibrant art community.
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And yet some moderators said it was "Insightful"? Slashdot has become part of the precipitate. Definitely not part of the solution.
Re: Why? (Score:1)
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If society becomes better when you let the government give money to people, why not have it give a lot more money to all people? That should produce the best possible society.
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Or how about instead we give money to people who will make beautiful things as opposed to handing it to billionaires like we currently do.
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It should be everyones prerogative to give money to whoever they like to give it to. And equally their prerogative to _not_ give money to someone who they do not want to give it to. For example an artist whose art they don't find beautiful.
Re billionaires they should obv go under the same rule. All money exchanges should be on a fully voluntary basis.
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So we should never use tax dollars to promote nice things for our society?
The problem with what you're saying is that there is always someone who will disagree with how our taxes are spent meanwhile an opt in or out system for taxation would never work.
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Correct, taxes should not be used to promote "nice things" for our society, because no one can decide what "nice things" are for everyone.
If you think menstruation blood art (it is real) is super nice for example, then you can go pay to see it, or buy a nice painting to hang in your living room. Who am I to demand your money is spent on something else? No, it should be your absolute right to spend your whole paycheck on this every month, if that is your thing.
Just like it should be my right to NOT spend mi
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Correct, taxes should not be used to promote "nice things" for our society, because no one can decide what "nice things" are for everyone.
Yeah, who needs roads, schools or any of the other nice things government gets us?
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The free market produces superior roads and superior schools to the government alternative.
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That only has any truth to it if you don't think accessibility to incredibly important infrastructure doesn't matter.
Turns out the West ended what had been the very common practice of toll roads hundreds of years ago for good reason, the toll roads were massively hampering trade. Likewise for schools, good luck having the type of educated populace we have today with only private schools.
Maybe book up on your history before making such outrageous claims. It's like you people actively want to roll us back to
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You are actually not aware of the vast network of toll roads that exist in the US then?
Vast? No. I am aware that there are some though. I'm also aware that if they ever became the norm they'd be a massive burden on trade.
Do you believe public schools are on par with private schools in terms of quality of education?
Do you believe there is something magic about forcibly confiscated money that makes it more effective at paying for a school building, teacher salaries etc, vs voluntary funding of the same?
Do you believe that education being available to everyone is bad?
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Before or after 1917?
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[T]axes should not be used to promote "nice things" for our society, because no one can decide what "nice things" are for everyone.
There are literally people who's function is to make these decisions. For everyone.
They can, and they do.
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Re billionaires they should obv go under the same rule.
No chance of that at all if you let them be the ones that make the rules. Nonetheless if I have to involuntarily give money to someone I would vastly prefer it be artists over billionaires, a billion times over. It's hardly even a real question.
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Because the improvement to society is not linear with the amount of money being given away.
Or did you think you had something insightful to say?
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What makes "artists" so special?
I'm going to hazard a guess here and guess that it's the fact that they produce art that makes them so special.
Everyone else should be outraged.
So promoting more art is bad? We give billionaires subsidies all over the place here in the US, I don't see how giving a relatively small amount of money to artists to promote the production of more art is somehow worse.
Re:Why? (Score:4, Informative)
Why would those groups need to be subsidized? What would be the practical benefit for society?
This is about using a very small amount of money being used to promote something nice for society, not about free money.
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If you read the actual report it says that society benefited from a decent financial return on the investment. Not directly of course, but as best they could determine the economic boost from having artists be more free to work on their art was more than the cost of the scheme.
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You have it backwards. You saw the words basic income and thought of this as a charity program.
It is not. In fact it is not really a basic income program at all. Sometimes politicians lie in order to get programs they like supported. Sometimes they try to get something done and watch it get twisted into something else.
This is more like a research grant program, but instead of being for scientists it is for artists. There is a limit of 2000 people, they must be established artists.
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for one, artists are special by definition. then again this is highly subjective and depending on your definition of art and artists.
there is a tiny portion of the population that is able to think and act (and hence "produce") in a way that is not available to others, being able to produce "art" that inspires other people and enhances the colective culture of a society. this is very valuable. in turn, a portion of these are able to do that because external help allows them to focus on it, be it a patron, a
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Or maybe, everyone should become an artist!
I mean, why not? If everyone can learn to code, surely everyone can learn to draw!
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I know you've turned into a miserable sod in your terminal years, but human civilisation owes a world of debt to the arts. Even if you hate everything by now doesn't mean arts in general isn't of major general source of social good.
As for what makes it "special"? What makes anything "special"? If you don't want to define things as special then shut down the government. A government exists to enact policy for the good of the collective, be that funding arts or throwing billions at the oil industry to keep yo
Their soap box makes them special (Score:2)
The public (nearly all tech-illiterates, use is not literacy) are easily appealed to by manipulating their emotions which happens to be the purpose of art, secondary even to money laundering.
Artists have easy, low effort jobs and want to keep being paid to churn out kitsch images AI could vomit out at least as effectively at lower cost to the end user. There is nothing left to invent.
Many people cannot compete so they want free money to subsidize their increasingly outdated skills. There is nothing special
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Re: Why? (Score:2)
It's what, 4,000 people, collecting about $4,000/year each - please describe the level of outrage you think is appropriate for the 5 million plus Irish citizens...
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What makes "artists" so special?
Everyone else should be outraged.
Next in the news: Renaissance 2.0 emerges in Ireland, as the number of artists grew exponentially, art classes in universities became the hottest class as every undergraduate try to cram art classes to qualify as an artist upon graduation.
20 years later: Protests spread across Ireland as government plan to reduce artists support scheme, citing the huge burden to government budget due to over half of the country now registered as being an artist.
Great idea, in theory (Score:5, Insightful)
Art is good and I like the idea of supporting artists.
But I also suspect that a combination of scammers and government bureaucrats will make the idea suck in practice.
Define art.
Does it require skill?
Does it need to produce beauty?
Does it need to produce stuff that others like?
Does it need to conform to the political flavor of the month?
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you'll spend more money trying to define those questions than you'll save from rooting out "scammers"
it's the tragedy of modern American politics, where more money is spent on fixing waste (or programs unenacted) just because there's some inherent waste
A large portion of the American electorate would rather set their own lawn on fire than see somebody who doesn't deserve money get some, it's pretty funny
Re:Great idea, in theory (Score:5, Insightful)
you'll spend more money trying to define those questions than you'll save from rooting out "scammers"
it's the tragedy of modern American politics, where more money is spent on fixing waste (or programs unenacted) just because there's some inherent waste
A large portion of the American electorate would rather set their own lawn on fire than see somebody who doesn't deserve money get some, it's pretty funny
Us Americans are flooded with propaganda making it out like we're being fucked by anybody below the poverty line every time they get the slightest bit of help from the government, at the same time, sometimes the same propaganda even, tells us that the only way to keep the country operational is to keep handing more and more money directly to the ultra-rich and the business class. There are, in fact, large swaths of the country that would gladly chop off their own limbs, so long as they knew someone they disagree with politically would have to witness it and be horrified by it. Hatred has been bred into us for generation upon generation, and it's now as foundational to our way of life as the worship of the monied classes as our new gods.
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Hatred has been bred into us for generation upon generation
Yeah yeah yeah. I was taught hate and I rejected it. I still get very angry from time to time, but I do my best to not let the anger devolve into hate. Hate is a personal choice.
I created this quote out of my own experiences; however, I feel certain it has been said many different times in many different ways, I was just unable to see it at the time I heard/read it:
"If you have hate in your heart, you have no room for God"
Since I am not religious, it actually morphs into: "If you have hate in your heart, yo
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If the art produced was liked by others, then people would pay for it, as people pay for things they sufficiently like.
This is exactly why Gucci bags exists etc.
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Gucci doesn't produce art, it produces massively overpriced consumer crap made in third world sweatshops
Re:Great idea, in theory (Score:4, Insightful)
A billion women would disagree, but that is exactly why I support your right to _not_ be forced to have your money spent on Gucci bags or other stuff you don't think is nice.
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A billion women would disagree...
What on earth are you basing that claim on?
...but that is exactly why I support your right to _not_ be forced to have your money spent on Gucci bags or other stuff you don't think is nice.
So I don't want any of my taxes going towards paying for sending our military into our cities amongst a shit ton of other things our government is doing right now. It's totally practical for our government to accommodate all that, right?
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Conservative estimate of number of women who owns or wants to own a Gucci bag.
So anything that has consumer demand is art? You didn't see how completely stupid that sounded when you wrote it?
Certainly not. I think that should all be done on a voluntary basis as well. You should be able to opt out of that, just like I should be able to opt out of paying for anything Ukraine-war-related or welfare-related or anything else I don't want to pay for.
Oh, I get it. You don/t understand how the world works. People don't like to pay for things but like all the things that they get from their taxes. There is no way to make voluntary taxation work while maintaining first world lifestyles. You'll never get something that isn't trade discouraging toll roads if you leave road building to be paid for on a voluntary basis for instance. We'll "freedom o
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What are you on about? There are tons of well maintained toll roads all over the world, that many people gladly pay to use.
And yet they arent the norm because lots of people realize they are bad for trade.
Re: Great idea, in theory (Score:2)
Isn't this something akin to the things FDR did during the Depression, paying artists to produce art? Of course, in this case the Irish gov't isn't requiring they actually create/produce art.
Ireland has a history of treating artists differently, so it's really not that big a deal in my opinion, but opinions vary.
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Art is not good.
Sturgeon's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
90 % of everything is crap. Why should we subsidise crap?
99 % of everything will be forgotten in a generation. Meanwhile, the 1 % that is not forgotten will survive for long - people should focus on that 1 %. Get back to me when you have read all classics, listened to all the great composers all works, visited all great art museums, seen all 100 top rated movies from all times. Then, but only then, is new art needed.
Lindy effect: https://en.wi [wikipedia.org]
Trigger warning. (Score:2)
I’m ”an artist” (Score:1)
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No, you're not. I am - I'm a published writer. Buy my novels ( https://www.barnesandnoble.com... [barnesandnoble.com] and https://www.amazon.com/Becomin... [amazon.com]
May be I am an Irish artist too... (Score:1)
Is Rosie considered an artist? (Score:2)
Rosie O'Donnell moved over there, has no work.
This may have come just in time!
America used to do this as well (Score:2)
Although under different circumstances Federal Project Number One [wikipedia.org]
Of the $4.88 billion allocated by the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935, $27 million was approved for the employment of artists, musicians, actors and writers under the WPA's Federal Project Number One.
In its prime, Federal Project Number One employed up to 40,000 writers, musicians, artists and actors because, as Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins put it, "Hell, they’ve got to eat, too"
This project had two main principles: 1)
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It's 2025 are we really still on "communism when government do thing"
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Idiots are gonna idiot in any year.
Not a basic income program (Score:2)
Money given to people that apply because of specific skills they have? Given by the Ministry of Culture?
If NASA gave a grant like that to scientists they would call that a Research Grant. This looks like an Artistry Grant program to me.
Basic income is given to people regardless of skill. Is an Artistry Grant program a good idea? I don't know - I have no opinion on it. But as this is an increase in the program it sounds to me like they have some data that claims it is a good idea.
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> found that recipients reported increased time spent on creative work, reduced financial stress, and improved well-being
They believe that money can buy happiness here and are doubling-down on it. Where does the money come from and how is it sustainable?
I'm not unemployed (Score:2)
They're just buying artist's support (Score:2)
They're just buying artist's support for their agenda, whatever it is. With taxpayer's money, of course, not theirs (LOL).
And why artists? Well, they're natural influencers, digital or analog, since ever. They're really good at it, in fact they're the best electoral campaigners money can buy, bonus points if it's with other's money.
Actually it's a pretty classic move, at least in very corrupt countries like mine.
Artists? (Score:2)
Seems... Ominous. (Score:2)
Hopefully I'm wrong!