2,000 artists to pocket €325 ‘basic’ weekly wage
ARTISTS will pocket €325 a week under a €25million pilot scheme set out in Budget 2022. Around 2,000 artists and creative arts workers will take part in the pilot Basic Income Guarantee Scheme which will run over three years. Ms Martin said the details of the scheme are yet to be finalised, but she expects the first payments to be made within the next six months. ‘It will be open to artists and creative workers, and it’s my intention to have a number of streams from professional artists to emerging and developing artists to creative arts workers,’ the minister said yesterday. ‘There’s more details to be worked out in consultation with the sector but my intention would be that this would [be] open to the artists in January and I’d be aiming for the first payments in the early spring.’ DJ and Save The Night campaigner Sunil Sharpe welcomed the announcement, describing the Government’s pilot as being a ‘progressive scheme’ for those in the entertainment industry.
However, Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh hit out at the Arts Minister over the vague details in the announcement, including the lack of clarity on who can apply for it.
‘For months artists’ representative groups and the public in general have been led to believe that this scheme was basically ready to go, and that an interdepartmental oversight group had been putting in the work for months to deliver an “oven-ready scheme” before its funding was announced in the Budget,’ he said.
‘We now learn that such basic questions – such as the definition of an artist – still haven’t been worked out.’
Speaking to reporters in Dublin, Ms Martin also signalled that the lowered VAT rate of 9% for hospitality, which was introduced in last year’s Budget and extended in Tuesday’s, will be raised to 13.5% next September.
The minister also signalled that a stay-and-spend voucher scheme is being considered by the Government. When asked if such a scheme could make up part of the pandemic bonus, the Green Party TD didn’t rule it out.