Basic Income for the Arts is being rolled out. (But it’s not all good news.)

Great news is coming down the pipeline.

The scheme run by the Irish government to furnish artists with an income boost, which will enable them to focus on creating works of art rather than the pressure to find suitable employment that comes with having to apply to Intreo for income support, is going to be extended. This is great news.

But it is not all good news, really. The devil is in the details, and we have yet to have all of these details from the horse’s mouth, but an agency that advocates for the arts announced that this scheme will be rolled out permanently, before adding that all 2000 artists currently on the scheme will be kept on the scheme. But in extending it, the reports are that only 800 new artists will be added to the scheme.

This means that the BIFA will be a tougher contest amongst the artists of Ireland than even the grants that are given out by the Arts Council, as it is, and these are already hotly contested and awarded with no clear rhyme or reason as to how it is decided who will get what.

It is sad that the arts in this country, and especially the visual arts, are often looked down on as a sort of pointless hobby. The only people who can afford to create are the retired. Those who try to make a living from creating images in this country are treated in such a way that they are often seen as wasters, con artists, almost. Any form of investment from the government towards this industry is treated almost as a waste of money, helping someone who should just go on the dole and take the money, do the Intreo interviews and the Turas Nua rubbish and “get a real job.” Then you can pay for your own art.

“… the arts are not some silly indulgence. The arts are a major revenue-creating industry that punches well above its weight despite gross negligence and derision by policymakers and the wider public in general. “

Such thinking is redundant.

The visual arts are crucial in selling a story of a place to people, driving tourism and with it all the wonderful money that the government wets its lips over. This isn’t just a silly idea. It’s a fact. Look at the Côte d'Azur, for example. For a long time, this region was a stagnant backwater in France. The economy there was subsistence, driven by fishing and, in the odd place, the tourists from England who went there for the climate and health reasons. But besides the large cities in that region, there was nothing.

Then the artists came and began painting the place as a wonderful sunny paradise where people could live an Arcadian existence. The power of this imagery, once seen by the Parisian elite, drove people to the region and drove the tourist trade in that area until it finally became a playground for the rich, or the fodder of the busloads of day-tripping tourists who cram the streets trying to catch a photograph of something that so many other tourists photograph, but was originally painted.

The same can be said of Scotland. First writers depicted it as a romantic and wild place. Then painters depicted it as a wild, romantic, almost brooding place. This depiction of Scotland has lingered down to this day, so that so many people travel there from all over the world and are willing to pay stupid money to experience the wildness and romantic mystery of a country where, if it isn’t the wind and rain, it is the midges that will torment you.

So, what does that tell us?

It shows us that the visual artists are a crucial industry that can bring so much money into a country, which benefits other industries linked particularly to tourism.

But sadly, many artists will be like me, having to branch out, to find ways to make money that pays for them to create works of art because they will not measure up to some civil servant’s idea of what art is, or what an artist should be doing. They do this, and I did this, because I know that the chances of getting an exhibition, which is a must for these people to accept that you are an artist, are nigh on impossible unless you happen to have a name already established. Which is why most galleries will now support a musician like Bob Dylan, and show his paintings, rather than helping some local no-name schmuck who needs the exhibition to launch their career, because they know people will come and buy the Bob Dylan paintings rather than the work of a nobody.

This is what we are up against, and why we need significantly more investment in the arts industry, just as other industries are supported and invested in by the government. Because the arts are not some silly indulgence. The arts are a major revenue-creating industry that punches well above its weight despite gross negligence and derision by policymakers and the wider public in general.

Dust Settles: When the Artist Can’t Paint. (A Diptych) © Vincent S. Coster 2025

© Vincent S. Coster 2025