Applications are now open for a Government pilot scheme in which artists will be paid a basic income of €325 a week for three years. 

The Government hopes this will provide artists with more financial stability in a sector that can swing from feast to famine. 

Artists have four weeks to get their applications in at which point 2,000 people will be selected at random. 

“Anyone can get selected, it’s non competitive,” Angela Dorgan, Chairperson of the National Campaign for the Arts, explained. 

“The only thing that you are asked to demonstrate is that being an artist is your full time work or your full time commitment,” she continued. 

“It may not be your full-time income which is why we’ve come around to the basic income for artists. 

“You find that artists often do a lot of their work for free because it’s the invisible pre-work - so it could be the writing or the rehearsing of an album before an album was actually released.” 

File photo from 2002 shows musicians playing in a pub in Killorglin, Co Kerry. Picture by: RollingNews.ie

Speaking at the scheme’s launch in Dublin’s Temple Bar last week, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said it was a hugely exciting new innovation for the arts in Ireland: 

"This pilot scheme represents a ground-breaking opportunity for us to explore how the role of the artist in Irish society can be protected and nurtured,” he said. 

“So we can continue to be inspired by great art for generations to come."

'A particularly hard two years'

One person who is going to apply is singer Mary Coughlan; she told Newstalk that although the acute phase of the pandemic is over, many artists are still finding it tough to make a living: 

“For me it would mean the world,” she explained. 

“I will apply for it and it’s been a particularly hard two years and it doesn’t seem to be getting much better for us.”

She continued:

“I know there are schemes in other countries where artists do get paid a living wage regularly - not just during pandemic times - but they get it all the time.

“Holland, Denmark, all the Scandinavian countries and France pay their artists.

“So this is really coming at a good time and a lot of people in my position would really love it.”

Main image: Members of the Chieftains on the steps of the National Concert Hall, for the launch of the Celtic Music Festival. Picture by: Graham Hughes/RollingNews.ie