Ireland is paying artists a basic income in a pioneering scheme

The Irish government is implementing a pioneering scheme that will give 2,000 artists a basic income for three years, allowing them to focus on their creative output while maintaining an adequate standard of living.

Under the scheme, which follows a three-year pilot, eligible creatives will receive €325 ($386) a week for three years followed by a period of three months when their income will steadily reduce.

The income is taxed, but is not contingent on their output, allowing creatives to have a relatively stable income, plan ahead and work fewer other jobs to sustain themselves.

Any type of artist, from writers, visual artists and actors to musicians, make-up designers and directors, will be eligible to apply.

“It’s a fundamental change,” said Peter Power, an artist, musician and designer who sits on the steering committee of the National Campaign for the Arts, which lobbied for the scheme.

“It changes your relationship with banks, landlords, savings, pensions. The fundamental architecture of being a secure citizen becomes available to you… it’s hard to put a metric on that,” he told CNN.

For artists like Aisling O’Mara who were lucky enough to make it onto the pilot scheme, the basic income offered a lifeline and a way to remain in the creative industries. It was “life changing,” she told CNN Wednesday, particularly because she discovered she was pregnant around the same time she was accepted onto the scheme.