The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and the Media announced the awarding of 27 grants for artists through the new Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme. These are not additional grants, rather a total of 2,000 places are available on the scheme and 27 grantees declined the offer to participate making 27 replacement grant places available.
Minister Catherine Martin said: “Today I was pleased to inform 27 artists that they had been selected to participate in the Basic Income for the Arts pilot scheme. These places became available to replace 27 applicants who declined their offers to participate in the scheme. Over 6,000 applicants who were eligible for the Basic Income but had not already been selected to participate were included in an anonymised randomised selection to fill the 27 spots. I expect the first payments to issue in the coming weeks.”
Over 9,000 applications were made under the scheme with over 8,200 assessed as eligible and included in a randomised anonymous selection process in August.
2,000 places were available and offers were made to the 2,000 selected artists in early September. As expected not all applicants were in a position to avail of the scheme and 27 or 1.4% turned down the grant for a variety of reasons including, no longer living in Ireland, having taken up full-time education and no longer working in the arts.
The Minister wanted to ensure that all 2,000 places were availed of, therefore all eligible applicants who were not previously selected to participate were included in further randomised selection to fill the 27 spots.
It is anticipated that payments for the scheme will commence shortly and recipients have been informed of this.
Information on the eligibility criteria and guidelines for the pilot scheme can be found here: Basic Income for the Arts Pilot Scheme