A select group of 2,000 artists will receive €325 per week for the next three years in a pilot scheme called ‘Basic Income for the Arts’.

Giving artists a basic income to support their endeavours was the number one recommendation of the Arts and Culture Recovery Taskforce set up in 2020 to examine how the sector could adapt and recover from the unprecedented damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The pilot scheme is the result of the taskforce's report, Life Worth Living, which was published in October 2020.

The main objective of the scheme is to address the precarious and financial instability faced by many working in the arts, and to help the sector recover after the pandemic.

More than 9,000 applications were received to avail of the free cash, but just 2,000 were picked by random selection, from among the eligible applicants.

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The three categories of applicants are: practising artists; creative arts workers, defined as someone with a creative practice or whose creative work makes a key contribution to the interpretation or exhibition of the arts; and recently trained, meaning graduated with a relevant qualification in the past five years.

Of the 2,000 chosen, 84% are practising artists, 9% creative workers and 7% recently trained.

Taskforce chair Clare Duignan said: “This is a landmark day, not just for those receiving grants, but also for Ireland, as it is the day that the state formally recognises the financial instability faced by many working in the arts and places a value on the time spent developing a creative practice and producing art.”

Recipients of the €16,900 per annum stipend are be required to engage in a data collection programme to assess the impact of a basic income style payment on artists and their creative practice.

The state payments will count towards income for income tax purposes.

Visual arts account for the largest number of recipients at 707, with music coming next with 584 and film and literature with 204 and 184 respectively. Theatre accounts for 173 recipients, circus 'artists' number 13, opera eight and others 33.

Arts minister Catherine Martin added: “I know that there will be a lot of disappointed people who applied and didn’t get selected. I look forward to seeing the results of the research which I hope will underpin future government policy for the arts.

“With so much uncertainty in the world now, we need the arts more than ever to help inspire us to imagine and create a better future for ourselves.”