4,000 seek 2,000 ‘art dole’ slots

THE new basic income scheme for artists has attracted twice as many creative hopefuls as allowed for, new figures have revealed.

Under a pilot scheme devised by Arts Minister Catherine Martin, artists can apply for a basic income of €320 a week over three years.

But by the time applications closed this week, 4,117 people had applied for the 2,000 available places.

The minister said the high take-up was due in part to the simplicity of the process. In response to queries from Social Democrat TD Gary Gannon, she said she had ‘ensured that the application process was as straightforward as possible’.

Ms Martin said: ‘Applicants are not required to provide information on their income from means-tested or other payments from the Department of Social Protection, as my department will not be assessing eligibility on the basis of that information.’

The scheme is open to 97 types of artists, with the arts defined as including ‘visual arts, theatre, literature, music, dance, opera, film, circus and architecture, and includes any medium when used for those purposes’.

Applicants must be taxcompliant and must be able to give evidence of ‘their creative practice or career in the arts’.

Among those who can qualify are visual arts curators, comedians, directors, make-up artists, mime

simple process:

Arts Minister Catherine Martin artists, puppeteers, writers, dancers, lyricists, actors, animators, circus acrobats and hair designers.

Also eligible are ‘recently trained artists and creative arts workers who cannot yet demonstrate that they have engaged in a creative practice but where their creative work makes a key contribution to the production, interpretation or exhibition of the arts’.

Once all applications have been assessed, eligible applicants will be entered into a random selection process. In addition, up to 1,000 eligible applicants who were not selected for the payment will be invited to participate in a control group to help evaluate the scheme.

The aim of the three-year pilot scheme is to research the impact a basic income would have on artists’ work patterns.

The €25m scheme has won support from figures in the arts but author and politician Mannix Flynn has sharply criticised it. Far from serving the interests of ‘true art’, it is ‘a hare-brained idea that creates a real danger of a cosy cartel evolving between the State and artists,’ he said. ‘Artists are in danger of being duped. Our cultural institutions – the Abbey and all that – need to be shaken up. That cannot happen if we create a welfare class of artists. This has more to do with hipsters in South William Street than art. Struggle is what generates art,’ he said. Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys pointed out that ‘payments under the pilot scheme will be reckonable as income for the purposes of taxation’.

‘Struggle is what generates art’