Like many artists, Aoife Ó Ceallacháin was pleased to hear the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) scheme was being made permanent.
Under the pilot, 2,000 artists received €325 a week from September 2022 to February 2026. A successor scheme, which will run from 2026 to 2029, opened to applications last week.
Ó Ceallacháin, a writer and disability advocate, was not selected to take part in the pilot. She was, however, chosen to be part of a control group who received six weeks of the payment in return for taking part in surveys.
Since the successor scheme was announced in February, Ó Ceallacháin has been eagerly awaiting details.
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“I was up late last night looking at the guidelines,” she says, “I went down a rabbit hole.”
Her thoughts? “I was surprised by how restrictive they are.”
The new scheme “seems more rigid and focused on people who are already successful. That risks reinforcing inequalities instead of addressing them, because then you’ve got a more limited access to voices and stories and who is ‘legitimate’ and who isn’t a ‘legitimate’ artist.”
While the BIA pilot was widely lauded a success - 97 per cent of 17,000 submissions to a public consultation process called for it be extended - one of the main criticisms centred on how accessible the scheme was for artists with disabilities.
Ó Ceallacháin is a member of Disabled Artists and Disabled Academics (Dada), which was among those to highlight the fact some artists with disabilities were afraid to apply to the scheme in case they lost their medical card or other allowances. The Department of Social Protection treats the BIA payment as earnings from self-employment. As such, it could impact the level of disability allowance or other supports a person receives.
“For disabled artists on means-tested supports, the BIA creates a hard ceiling,” Ó Ceallacháin explains.
“This hinders disabled artists’ ability to grow and develop professionally. We reach an income and quality bar where we’re expected to demonstrate professional practice, while being restricted from earning.”
Ó Ceallacháin said many artists with disabilities feel as though they need to “exist between ‘professional enough’ to be a ‘real’ artist for the Department of Culture and ‘disabled enough’ to receive support from the Department of Social Protection”.
Research carried out into the pilot found that, within a small focus group, recipients with disabilities reported “reductions to their medical and disability support as a result of accepting the BIA payment” and “obstacles around accepting work that impacts welfare thresholds”.
Emilie Conway, a founder member of Dada, describes the situation as “precarity squared”.
“We have the precarity of our disabilities, and then we have the precarity of the [arts] sector,” she says. “I know, in a conversation with Social Protection myself, they said, ‘Well, once you’re working for a while, you can predict your income.’
“The arts does not work like that, it’s not like other sectors. You don’t get to a place where you say, ‘Okay, I’m [here] five years, I’m going to get promoted, I’m going to get this income every year.’ It’s not like that, it’s a very unique field.”
Conway, a jazz singer, says people with disabilities are often excluded from participating in training or certain events because - even if they get offered a spot - the building in question is not accessible.
“We often have to do very creative training ... because the mainstream stuff doesn’t work for us.”
As well as her own personal experience, Conway says she has “sat on panels that have assessed applications” from people with disabilities and seen “the kind of hoops people will have to go through” to get funding.
Another concern raised by some people about the pilot scheme was a perceived lack of accountability; recipients had to take part in surveys detailing the time they spent on their creative work but there was little follow-up. To some, this hands-off approach was seen as a good thing - it allowed artists to get on with their practice without having to get bogged down in paperwork. To others, this meant some people could take advantage of the system by getting the money without producing any art.
In the new scheme, artists will have to take part in annual audits “to verify continued eligibility for the payment”, according to the Department of Culture. Recipients will also have to complete “a comprehensive survey” which will include “collection of data around artistic output”, a spokeswoman said. “Failure to do so will result in removal from the scheme and may result in a requirement to repay any BIA payments received.”
While annual check-ins may be welcomed by some, the audits could provide an added stress for artists with disabilities. If they become unwell for a period during the three-year cycle, they may be unable to produce at the same level.
“We could have a longer time out of work,” Conway says. ‘’
“[The scheme] is great in theory. In practice, it’s showing the systemic discrimination and inequities that exist.”
A spokeswoman said the Department of Culture “engaged continuously” with disability groups during the development of the new scheme, including via research conducted into the pilot and a stakeholder forum that took place last year.
In terms of the application process, the spokeswoman said “artists who work in socially-engaged practices are welcome to apply”.
A spokesman for the Department of Social Protection said the disability allowance “has one of the highest earning and capital disregards operated by the department”.
People in receipt of disability allowance who receive the BIA, and who do not have other income, “continue to receive part of their social welfare payment, and see an overall increase in their income of €252.50 per week”.
A statement noted that a person in receipt of disability allowance “can currently earn up to €165 a week and keep their full rate of payment, and up to €527.60 a week and still keep their entitlement to the minimum rate of payment" as well as secondary supports such as free travel and a medical card.
