Basic Income for the Arts: what this new scheme could mean for Ireland’s spoken word artists
Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts has moved from experiment to a new three-year scheme, offering 2,000 professional artists €325 a week.
Research from the pilot found that recipients spent more time making art, earned more from their creative work and reported improved wellbeing.
For spoken word artists, whose careers often combine writing, performance and other employment, the model could be particularly significant. For many artists, the difficulty of building a career is not simply finding an audience for the work. It is finding enough time to make it.
That problem lies at the centre of Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts (BIA), a State initiative designed to address the unstable incomes associated with professional artistic practice and reduce the number of artists leaving the sector for economic reasons.
Unlike a conventional project grant, the money is not attached to the production of a particular book, exhibition, performance or event. The underlying principle is that providing professional artists with a predictable income gives them greater capacity to sustain their practice.
The Department of Culture, Communications and Sport describes the scheme as a means of countering the precarious nature of arts employment, retaining talent within the sector and giving artists greater agency over their creative practice. It is not a universal basic income, but a targeted intervention for professional artists.
What did the pilot find?
The new scheme follows one of the largest experiments of its kind undertaken in the Irish arts sector. The original Basic Income for the Arts pilot emerged from the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce established during the Covid-19 pandemic. Its 2020 Life Worth Living report recommended trialling a basic income for artists, and €25 million was subsequently allocated in Budget 2022 to launch the programme.
Around 2,000 artists and creative arts workers received €325 a week, while a control group of eligible applicants did not receive the payment but participated in the same research programme. The randomised controlled design allowed researchers to compare changes between the two groups rather than simply asking recipients whether they believed the payment had helped them.
The differences became increasingly apparent as the pilot progressed. After its first year, recipients were spending approximately eight hours more each week on their artistic practice than members of the control group, including additional time making work, researching and experimenting, undertaking administration and training.
They also invested around €550 more each month in their practice and completed, on average, 3.6 more pieces of work over a six-month period than members of the control group. At the same time, recipients spent 2.7 fewer hours each week working outside the arts.
The findings extended beyond artistic productivity. Recipients reported higher life satisfaction and were less likely to experience depression and anxiety. They also found it easier to make ends meet and were better able to afford basic necessities than members of the control group.
A subsequent independent cost-benefit analysis also suggested that the benefits extended beyond individual recipients. Arts-related income among participants increased by more than €500 per month on average, while income from employment outside the arts fell by around €280. Recipients received approximately €100 less per month in social protection and were 38 percentage points less likely to receive Jobseeker's payments.
The analysis estimated that for every €1 of public money invested in the pilot, €1.39 was generated in social and economic benefits. Although the gross cost was approximately €105 million, additional tax revenue and reduced social protection expenditure brought the estimated net fiscal cost below €72 million. Improvements in psychological wellbeing accounted for almost €80 million of the estimated benefits.
The results therefore suggest that the payment did not simply supplement artists' existing incomes. Recipients shifted more of their working lives towards the arts.
Why this matters for spoken word
That finding has particular resonance for spoken word, an art form in which professional practice does not always follow a conventional career structure.
A spoken word artist may simultaneously be a poet, performer, workshop facilitator, event organiser, writer or musician. Income can come from performances, commissions, workshops, residencies and occasional funding awards, with employment outside the arts often filling the gaps.
The problem is that the work audiences eventually encounter on stage requires time long before a ticket is sold. A five-minute performance may begin with hours of writing and editing. A longer set requires rehearsal and repeated performance. Developing a full-length spoken word show can involve months of writing, dramaturgy, production and experimentation.
Conventional project funding remains important, but it generally requires an identifiable project or outcome. Basic income operates at a different point in the process. It can support the period in which an artist is developing their practice before there is necessarily a finished performance, publication or project to fund.
The pilot's finding that recipients spent more time on their artistic practice and less time working outside the arts is therefore particularly relevant to practitioners working in forms such as spoken word, where substantial amounts of creative labour can be unpaid or undertaken before income is generated. There is also a potential effect on the wider spoken word ecosystem.
The Government's objectives for the new scheme include retaining artists in the sector and generating wider activity through spending on materials, collaborators and new projects. For spoken word, an artist with more time to develop work may create a longer performance, commission another artist, organise an event, collaborate with musicians or theatre makers, or undertake further professional development.
The significance is consequently not limited to the €325 received by an individual. The question is what an artist is able to do with the stability that payment provides.
Who was eligible to apply?
The 2026-2029 scheme is directed towards professional practising artists rather than anyone engaged in creative activity.
Applicants had to be at least 18, have an active professional artistic practice and be primarily based in the Republic of Ireland. Their creative practice also had to be predominantly based in Ireland. There is no upper age limit.
For most applicants, establishing eligibility required three approved pieces of evidence demonstrating an active professional practice, at least two of which had to come from Irish organisations, funding bodies or representative organisations.
Accepted evidence could include qualifying Arts Council or local authority funding, alongside other approved evidence of professional income, active practice or membership of recognised representative organisations. A portfolio, website, social media account or samples of an applicant's work were not, by themselves, accepted as proof of professional status.
That distinction is important for spoken word artists. Eligibility is based on evidence of an established professional practice, not simply identifying as a poet or having written or performed work.
An artist does not, however, have to be entirely self-employed before applying. Successful recipients are required to obtain tax clearance and register as self-employed if they have not already done so. The BIA payment is taxable and is treated as self-employment income. The scheme is also not means-tested.
Artists receiving social welfare payments could apply, although BIA income is treated as self-employment income for the purposes of relevant means tests, meaning successful applicants need to consider how the payment interacts with their individual social protection circumstances.
Some groups are excluded. Artists who cannot demonstrate an active professional practice are not eligible under the standard stream, nor are artists based outside the Republic of Ireland, Aosdána members receiving the Cnuas, or people engaged in full-time education during the relevant period.
A route for recent graduates
The new scheme also introduced a separate route for artists at the beginning of their careers. Up to 100 of the 2,000 places are reserved for Recently Graduated Applicants who do not yet have sufficient professional experience to satisfy the standard evidence requirements.
Applicants in this category had to have completed a relevant practice-based qualification at Level 8 or above and graduated in 2024, 2025 or by September 1st, 2026. Instead of three proofs of professional practice, they were required to provide evidence of their qualification and confirm their intention to pursue professional artistic practice.
It creates a limited entry point for artists caught in a familiar problem: needing professional experience to qualify for support while requiring support to establish that professional career in the first place.
From experiment to arts policy
The significance of the Basic Income for the Arts lies partly in what it represents about the way artistic work is valued. Traditional arts funding tends to focus on what an artist produces: the book, exhibition, performance, festival, recording or project that can be presented to an audience.
Basic income begins from a different premise. It recognises that artistic output depends on labour that frequently happens before there is anything visible to fund. The evidence from the pilot gives that argument measurable weight. Recipients spent more time making work, invested more in their practice, earned more from the arts and relied less heavily on employment outside the sector. They also reported improvements in wellbeing and financial security.
For spoken word, the implications extend beyond the artists selected for the scheme. Ireland has a growing network of poets, open mics, slams, showcases, festivals and multidisciplinary performance nights, but much of the work required to sustain that activity happens between performances. Writing, rehearsal, event development and experimentation are difficult to quantify on a funding application, but they are the work from which performances emerge.
The Basic Income for the Arts does not solve every difficulty facing that sector. Only 2,000 artists can receive the payment in this round, professional eligibility has to be demonstrated, and eligible applicants are not guaranteed selection.
Nor does income support replace the need for project grants, venues, commissions, festivals and routes through which artists can bring their work to audiences. What it does provide is something comparatively unusual in arts policy: funding for the artist before funding the outcome.
For spoken word practitioners accustomed to fitting creative work around the rest of their working lives, the findings of the pilot suggest that the value of €325 a week may ultimately be measured not only in income, but in hours: more time to write, rehearse, experiment, perform and remain an artist.
