Minister Catherine Martin speaking at the Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Scheme Launch

Check against delivery

Tá an-áthas orm fáilte a chur romhaibh anseo inniu chuig an ócáid speisialta seo, seoladh an Scéim Phíolótach um Ioncam Bunúsach do na hEalaíona.

I would like to welcome everyone here today to the launch of the Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme. I would particularly like to thank my colleagues the Taoiseach Micheál Martin and the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar and to thank them for their continued support for this important initiative.

I know I don’t need to tell anyone here about the importance of Irish culture, Irish art and Irish productions, it cannot be overstated. And it was a reality we came to realise more than ever during the pandemic. The arts contribute to individual and societal well-being, as well as contributing to Ireland's reputation as a country with a rich cultural and artistic history.

I believe that this scheme is the start of a fundamental change in the way Ireland supports and recognises her artists and arts community. The idea for the Basic Income for the Arts pilot arose as a recommendation from the Arts and Culture Taskforce which I established in 2020 in response to the devastation wreaked by the COVID-19 pandemic on our arts sector. I am delighted that the Taskforce chair Clare Duignan and other Taskforce members are with us here today and I would like to thank them for their work on producing their report Life Worth Living.

This measure is a research project and builds on the efforts of so many in recent years to highlight the need to support artistic practice. This includes the work done by Theatre Forum to highlight precarious incomes in the arts, the tireless work of the National Campaign for the Arts to advocate for artists practice, the voices of people like Theo Dorgan, Philip King and Garry Hynes, who came before Oireachtas Committees and spoke so eloquently about the value of the arts. It complements the central role of the Arts Council as the Irish government agency for developing the arts. But mostly it flows from the inherent value of the work of individual artists, work that enriches all of our lives on a daily basis.

I believe that the scheme I am launching here today delivers on the Taskforce’s vision for a basic income for the sector. The scheme has been shaped by repeated rounds of engagement with the sector and relevant stakeholders as was determined since the outset to ensure that the voices of artists and those working in the sector would be heard and valued.

The Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme is a once in a generation, transformational measure in the funding of the arts in Ireland. It will make a strong statement at home and abroad about the value that we as a nation place on artistic practice both for its intrinsic value and in terms of our personal and collective wellbeing, and also in terms of its importance to our identity and cultural distinctiveness on the global stage.

Ireland’s culture in all its uniqueness and variety is the well-spring of our identity as a people. It captures our past, shapes our present and imagines our future. It is this Irishness informed by our arts that we carry with us no matter where we go in the world and it is the thing that makes us recognisable as Irish.

For generations Irish artists have inspired people all over the world like our writers, playwrights and poets such as Seamus Heaney, James Joyce and Enda O’Brien to name but a few. Our famed visual artists like Louis Le Brocquy, Jack B Yeats, and Nora McGuinness. Our renowned musicians like U2, Enya, Hozier and DC Fontaines have worldwide fan bases. Irish film and TV is well recognised on the world stage with recent Oscar nominations for Kenneth Brannagh’s Belfast and for Wolfwalkers last year and the global success of shows like Game of Thrones and globally renowned actors like Saoirse Ronan, Michael Fassbender and Jessy Buckley. The Druid and Abbey stage plays all over the world. It is a significant and impressive artistic heritage which I want to ensure continues.

Delivering this pilot has been a key priority for me as Minister with responsibility for arts and culture and is based on my fundamental belief in the intrinsic value of the arts, culture and creativity. It is critical in my view that we recognise and support artistic practice in all its forms.

What we are proposing to do in Ireland goes further than any other support I know of internationally, in that a basic income will be offered to artists and creative arts workers, not as a social protection support, but instead in recognition of the intrinsic value of artistic practice allowing artists and creatives to focus on their practice and be compensated appropriately for it.

The recent pandemic reinforced the fact that each and every person relies on and leans into the arts during times of need and every person was reminded of the true value of artists and their work during the last two years as we listened to music, read poetry and watched films to get ourselves through those difficult days. And it is the arts that will help us make sense of what happened and help us shape the future. With so much uncertainty in the world now including the war in Ukraine, the climate crisis and cost of living increases we need the arts now more than ever to help inspire us to imagine and create a better future for ourselves.

We need artistic nourishment, and equally our artists need sustenance and support. The Basic Income for the Arts, BIA, also the Irish for food, is that very sustenance which will help creatives keep creating.

Tá na healaíona tábhachtach do gach duine againn agus cothóidh agus tacóidh ioncam bunúsach do na healaíona leo.

The pandemic reinforced my belief that we need a new way to support artists, one that recognises the value of work required to develop an arts practice and which addresses the precarious incomes which are all too often a challenge for artists. I am determined to ensure that the pandemic does not do permanent damage to the arts sector. 2,000 participants will be provided with €325 a week for three years to allow them to focus on their creative practice and to facilitate research on the impact this will have on their practice, their wellbeing and the arts sector as a whole.

The guidelines for the scheme setting out the eligibility criteria will be available today on my department’s website and the scheme will open for applications next Tuesday April 12th.

I would encourage all artists and creative arts workers to apply. This is a unique opportunity to research the impact a basic income could have on the arts and to provide the evidence base for a permanent support.

Personally I am privileged to be the Minister in a positon to deliver this pilot and to have secured the government’s commitment for a three year basic income pilot scheme for the arts. We need now to firmly grasp this opportunity which could help to elevate the arts, and the skilled workforce within the sector, to new heights.

This is a watershed moment in the funding of artistic practice in Ireland. It makes a statement about our values as a nation that the voices of artists have been heard and that the arts matter. I might finish with a quote from Sir John Tusa, former director of the Barbican performing arts centre in London who said:

“The final value of the arts cannot be predicted or quantified. A nation without arts would be a nation that had stopped talking to itself, stopped dreaming and had lost interest in the past and lacked curiosity about the future.”

Go raibh maith agaibh.