Ireland Makes a Program Offering Basic Income for Artists Permanent

After a successful three-year pilot, the country will continue to provide 2,000 artists with $1,500 per month

Should a country financially support its artists? That’s the question that Ireland sought to answer with a pilot program that ran between 2022 and 2025, during which the government provided 2,000 creatives with a basic income of €325 a week (around $380 by today’s exchange rate).

Now, Ireland has decided to make the basic income for artists permanent.

“It’s pretty huge,” Dublin-based artist Elinor O’Donovan, who participated in the three-year pilot program, tells Sheena Goodyear and Marcus Medford-Kerr of CBC Radio’s “As It Happens.” “It’s been transformative for my work, and for my well-being in general.”

Under the program, 2,000 selected artists will receive around $1,500 per month, no strings attached. Participants will be selected from an application process set to begin in September 2026, reports ARTnews’ Harrison Jacobs. The program includes a provision that may allow for 200 additional artists to receive income if more funding becomes available, per the Irish broadcaster RTÉ.

The idea to provide government assistance to artists emerged during the pandemic, when Ireland’s cultural institutions were forced to shut down, Catherine Martin, Ireland’s former culture minister, told the New York Times’ Alex Marshall in 2023. At the time, Martin commissioned a task force to come up with ways the government could support artists, which recommended a basic income pilot.

“Worrying about putting bread on the table really impacts artists’ creative juices,” Martin told the Times. “This is about giving them space to work.”

In recent years, some proponents of basic income have focused their efforts on providing regular financial support to artists, who can spend months or years working on unpaid creative projects. In New York, a private organization called Creatives Rebuild New York supported 2,400 creatives with $1,000 a month for three years following the pandemic.

Ireland’s program stands out because it’s both government-funded and—as of this month—permanent.

“This scheme is the envy of the world, and a tremendous achievement for Ireland, and must be made future-proof and sustainable,” Patrick O’Donovan, Ireland’s current culture minister, says in a statement.

The pilot cost Ireland more than $100 million. But as CBC Radio reports, an external consulting group called Alma Economics found that the program also boosted engagement with the arts and offset some of the cost through tax generation and a reduction in welfare payments.

“From a financial point of view, it’s hugely beneficial,” O’Donovan tells CBC Radio. “But beyond that, I think there’s something intangible that the arts offer to culture and society at large that is harder to measure, but I think it’s still extremely valuable.”