[closewith]

> Society has not disintegrated.

Obviously not because of this income scheme and not complete disintegration, but Irish society is under extreme strain from housing pressures, rising living costs, and growing polarisation that is tearing at social cohesion.

It's frustrating to see funds allocated to this scheme when health, housing, transport, etc are all failing apart.

[BryantD]

All true, but let's not lose track of relative costs.

The income program provides €33,800,000 a year (2000 participants, €325 a week, 52 weeks in a year). Double that to account for cost of managing the program -- that seems too high to me, but I want to err on the side of caution for this analysis.

Some percentage of that money flows right back into the economy, of course.

Meanwhile, ignoring windfall corporate taxes, Ireland ran a €7.4 billion deficit in 2025. So the cost of the program, ignoring the money flowing back into the economy, is under half a percentage point of the budget? Those small amounts do add up, but I can't see this as relevant competition to the cost of shoring up health, housing, and transport. I don't have good estimates of how much those costs are, which is why I'm using the deficit as a relevant proxy, but still -- we ought to avoid the trap of seeing numbers which are large to you and me and forgetting that other numbers are larger by orders of magnitude. (There's a term for this which slips my mind.)

[closewith]

The allocation this year is €18m and it goes live in Q4. On a steady-state basis we are likely in the €60–70m range annually. That's not a rounding error.

This is an eight-figure recurring commitment. It represents the total lifetime income tax contribution of well over 100 ordinary Irish workers per year. That's not an abstract, it's decades of PAYE from real people.

Public finance is about marginal allocation. Many high-impact projects sit in or below this band:

* St Christopher’s Hospice rebuild in Cavan – €13.5 MM

* Cork Educate Together Secondary School in Douglas – €45 MM

* NAS Ambulance Centre in New Ross – €0.5 MM

* CAMHS national annual opex budget – €180 MM

So these aren't symbolic sums. They're the difference between capacity and waiting lists.

“Money flows back into the economy” applies equally to nurses, SNAs, paramedics, construction workers, carers, etc. Recirculation is a property of all domestic public spending. It is not a defence of any specific programme.

Comparing this to the national deficit is also wrong. Almost every discrete programme looks small beside a multi-billion euro figure (whether it's the structural deficit or the €29 BN DSP budget). That does not mean it should escape scrutiny. Budget decisions are made at the margin. €60 MM for artist basic income competes with all these other €5-100m line items, not with the entire deficit.

Exponent blindness is real, but it is not relevant here. The question is:

Is this the highest-value use of €60-70 MM per year in a system with delayed scoliosis surgeries, SNA shortages, and overstretched mental health services?

[BryantD]

Thanks for the more detailed analysis — you clearly have better visibility into specifics than I do as an outsider. I sincerely appreciate the follow up and I agree that the economics should be examined.

I still think there’s value to encouraging the arts that isn’t purely financial, but I don’t think there’s an easy way to answer yes to your last question.

[some_random]

Meanwhile, what's going to be the social effect of working stiffs living paycheck to paycheck seeing the government giving preference yet again to someone other than them?

[TheSpiceIsLife]

This program has nothing going for it.

That 33 million could have built, let’s say, 66 houses and housed, let’s say, 264 people (66 families of four) for a generation before needing much in the way of maintenance.

But no, fuck the working poor, let’s fund artists.

Myopic.

[jmye]

> But no, fuck the working poor, let’s fund artists.

What if they built those 66 houses? Is the complaint then, "what about the other working poor, why didn't they get houses"? Is there ever a point where it's like, ok to help some people given that some is more than none? Or is this all zero sum bullshit where if we can't help everyone we should help no one and just give Google back it's tax dollars?

Speaking of "myopic".

[BryantD]

Sorry, but what exactly makes you say that artists aren't working poor?

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it sounds a bit like you've got a pre-existing opinion of the value of artists vs. however you're defining working poor.

[jmmcd]

You didn't read the article. The scheme gave positive return on investment.

[closewith]

> It also recouped more than the trial's net cost of 72 million euros ($86 million) through increases in arts-related expenditure, productivity gains and reduced reliance on other social welfare payments, according to a government-commissioned cost-benefit analysis.

I'd love to see the breakdown on this, because in my experience with Government comms, if it was a straightforward economic win like an FDI or industrial announcement, they'd headline the figure. Unquantified phrases like "reduced reliance on other social welfare payments" are usually spin at best.

[lbreakjai]

This sentence sounds like "We saved 1000€ on benefits thanks to this 1500€ totally not a benefit payment!"

[jmmcd]

I understand your point, but in response to GP (they should spend this money on houses for other poor people instead), the reduced reliance on other social welfare is totally legitimate to count.

[closewith]

I agree, but another commenter linked the cost-benefit analysis and it really is creative accounting to get to a positive net social return.

The net fiscal cost after accounting for increase tax revenue and social protection savings was €72 MM.

This was then offset to get to a positive net social gain by €80 MM in "wellbeing gains", as measured by a single survey question called the WELLBY test:

> “Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays, where 0 is "not at all satisfied" and 10 is "completely satisfied"?

The €80 MM in "wellbeing gains", which is the sole decider of whether this pilot was a net positive or a huge net negative to society, is because on average, the 2,000 pilot scheme participants had a very approximate 0.7–1.1 increase in score when asked the above question during the pilot as compared to before the pilot. Each 1 point was deemed to be worth €15,340.

[whywhywhywhy]

Rest of the welfare cost in Ireland is around €68 billion so honestly it could be 100 million and it’s not even a drop in a bucket.

Definitely arguable the artistic output of Ireland is a better investment and more important than housing 66 non-productive families.

[dgb23]

That's a problem with all tax havens. They drastically increase inequality and inflate assets, especially housing and rent.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Australia isn’t a tax haven, it’s a tax supermassive black hole.

And we have wildly out of control inequality, inflated asset prices, and unaffordable housing, out the wazoo.

[nilamo]

Why fix one problem, when another problem also exists?

[closewith]

Classic false dilemma. You're trying to frame my comment as “we can only ever fix one problem” when it is, in fact, “we have constrained resources and urgent systemic failures and so prioritisation is important”.

For example, Budget 2026 did not address the €307 million structural shortfall in university funding. Is basic income for artists a better allocation than third-level education? Or capital expenditure on cancer care? Or NAS opex?

I specifically disagree with this allocation of funds as we live in country filled with specific solvable structural and life-limiting problems that should be solved before artist wellbeing.