Ireland is making basic income for artists program permanent
371 comments
·October 15, 2025CalRobert
pols45
Ah Jaysus! Ireland’s has been running "basic income schemes" since the 6th century. "Modernity" is just a bit blind to how it worked. What we are seeing now is the secular attempts at institutionalizing it.
What we now call "Pastoral Care" emerged out of the behavior of some Irish monks in the sixth century embedding themselves in local communities exchanging advice for free mead and shelter. They started writing books about its effectiveness.
And so it became institutionalized world wide. So they would send a bloke to Ballykissangel, pay him to sit there, listen to the villagers’ woes on Sundays, and spend the rest of the week in the pub providing cultural enrichment.
Most importantly no numbers and report were used to justify these programmes. And this is what Sociologists say is the problem with modernity.
Corporate wonderland and McDonalds has convinced the "educated" numbers are somehow magic. And its easy to break that spell. Just ask a Kid to come up with a business plan to run a McDonalds. Its a super simple exercise involving costs and expenses. After they do that, ask them to scale it up so McDonalds can feed the world. Once you learn the McDonalds model cannot feed the world, the only path forward (for people who care about these things and most don't) is coming up with models that aren't built on top of numbers. There is a big reason the Church has outlasted corporations and empires. And its not numbers and reports. Its pastoral care.
dkarl
> There is a big reason the Church has outlasted corporations and empires. And its not numbers and reports
Right, the Catholic Church doesn't pay any attention to its finances. It doesn't have regularly financial reports full of numbers that are carefully reviewed by several levels of leadership. It doesn't zealously protect its tax exemptions and press people for donations each week. It just kinda wings it and hopes the checks don't bounce, which they magically don't because the Church does good work in the world?
epiccoleman
> And so it became institutionalized world wide. So they would send a bloke to Ballykissangel, pay him to sit there, listen to the villagers’ woes on Sundays, and spend the rest of the week in the pub providing cultural enrichment.
Good lord, how do I get that job?
jdpage
Seminary, then becoming ordained as a priest, at the very least.
chermi
I think the church has a few other things going for it. Guilt, redemption, fear of rejection from community, ya know things of that sort. I'm sure you're glad to see corporations taking up such tactics with climate-shaming and such. As long as it's not money.
andy99
I don’t think I support UBI but one thing I like about the concept is the absence of eligibility testing that does away with the related bureaucracy. If the bureaucratic overhead stays it’s basically just another government welfare program.
stronglikedan
I firmly believe that removing the administrative spend to run the current bureaucratic nightmare that is welfare would free up enough money to implement a true UBI. Of course, that's almost impossible to prove, but I just feel it in my bones that it's true.
euleriancon
Well, the US publishes numbers for a lot of its programs so we can see exactly how much is spent on the bureaucratic nightmare.
Medicaid
FY 2023 Budget: $900.3b ($620b federal, $280b state) [1]
FY 2023 Budget not spent on benefits (admin overhead): 5% ($45b) [2]
SNAP
FY 2024 Budget: $100.3b [3]
FY 2024 Budget not spent on benefits (admin overhead): $6.5b [3]
TANF
FY2024 Budget: $31.5b ($16.5b federal, $15b state) [4]
FY2023 Budget spent on program overhead: %10.1 ($3.2b) [5]
Total Admin Spending $54.7b -> $169 per person in the US
So not totally negligible but also not exactly a basic income
[1] (https://www.macpac.gov/topic/spending)
[2] (https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R42640) See figure 4
[3] (https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover...)
[4] (https://www.gao.gov/assets/880/872093.pdf)
[5] (https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ofa/fy2023_tan...)
prewett
Feelings are uncorrelated with accuracy. Last year, the US revenue was $4.7 billion [1]. The US population is estimated to be 342 million [2]. If we had no government, we could UBI everyone $13,742/year. This is the maximum we could UBI, and it is not enough to live on. But if you want roads, enforcement of food and drug safety, some sort of law enforcement system, national parks, at least enough military to prevent Canada or Mexico from waltzing in and annexing us, support for research grants, etc. then it's going to be substantially less than that.
[1] https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/gover...
Aurornis
> to implement a true UBI. Of course, that's almost impossible to prove, but I just feel it in my bones that it's true.
It's actually easy to prove that this isn't true. Not even close.
What do you define as a "true UBI"? Take that annual number and multiply it by the population of the United States. That's how much a "true UBI" program would have to spend annually.
If we took a poverty-level wage of $15.5K annually and gave it to every person, that would require $5.4 Trillion, excluding any overhead of sending out the money.
That's more than all of the federal tax revenue combined. Even if we took every dollar paid in federal taxes and gave it to every person in the United States with 100% efficiency, divided evenly, it would still be below what's considered poverty-level wages.
I think a lot of people have "feel it in my bones" beliefs about UBI that they haven't stopped to check with some simple math. Actually giving everyone a lot of money is extremely expensive.
chermi
Which is precisely while UBI will never happen - it takes power away from the government. Replacing the vast majority of welfare with NIT/UBI just makes too much sense. It's too efficient. Less government jobs, less government power. So it will never happen.
jandrese
The fundamental problem with UBI is that if it is enough to live on (even if it's a crummy life), then who is going to pick the strawberries? The ugly truth is our society is built on top of people doing absolute shit jobs for insulting pay.
If someone needs that money to eat they'll do the job, but if you're asking them to wreck their body in inhumane conditions in order to have slightly more spending money then they're going to say no. Even if their living conditions are lousy it's better than bending over in the mud under the boiling sun while a slave driver yells at them all day long.
DanielHB
In Sweden everyone gets around 110 euro per month as a child subsidy, you don't even need to apply. It just shows up in your bank account. At age 16 the benefit goes directly to the child.
Cthulhu_
How is it checked that you're eligible? Asking because the system in the Netherlands could be defrauded, people registering to be living in the country, registering X amount of children, then going back to live in a cheaper country. Not sure if their children were actually real either.
(this was a relatively isolated incident but as these things go, they overreacted, set up software that over-eagerly identified families as defrauding the system and taking their benefits away, causing widespread chaos and a still-running compensation program that's costing the government years tens of billions to set right (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_childcare_benefits_scand...)).
bombcar
Everyone gets it or everyone with a childs?
schwartzworld
It saves a lot of work and therefore money. But there’s another layer to consider for many people. Someone getting benefits who doesn’t deserve it is less important than someone who needs help not getting it. You can’t scam a system that’s free to everybody, and there’s no incentive to.
bluGill
People getting money who need it generally have other problems and so you need to get them in touch with the other help they need. Stopping scams of the system is a bonus, but the real value is (or should be!) evaluating everyone getting help to ensure they are getting the other care they need. Many people who need money are unable to handle money and so we still need programs to find them and ensure they are not getting scammed, or wasting their money (that is not saving enough to eat at the end of the month despite getting enough)
If your only concern is people who are scamming the system, UBI ensures they are not scamming by definition. (we can debate if that is a good solution or not - a very different topic). However the main concern should be people who need help, and a large number of them money is a secondary need to their main problem.
this_user
Sure, just handing out money to everyone is easy. The hard part is finding enough money to do it.
andy99
Yes I agree and right now the system seems like the opposite: better ten deserving people go without than one undeserving person gets an extra penny, even if we have to pay way more in bureaucracy costs adjudicate everything.
bell-cot
> You can’t scam a system that’s free to everybody, and there’s no incentive to.
Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the scam of collecting benefits via fake or stolen identities?
tracker1
That's about the only thing I like about it as well... that said, I'd only support it for natural/born citizens.
snakeboy
I assume this is a joke?
ajmurmann
Another benefit over most welfare programs is that there is no welfare cliff. You'll never have less incentive (or negative in some programs) to start a job because you'd lose the benefit (other than relative marginal value of the next marginal dollar being inherently lower).
TimPC
This program is an insignificant spec of spending compared to UBI though. UBI in most countries would be 50% of all government spending and welfare related spend is just nowhere close to that.
glitchc
It requires an application. How is that not eligibility testing? Did you read the article?
CalRobert
The article is not describing a universal basic income.
hrimfaxi
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
philipallstar
> audience engagement with the arts generated €16.9 million in social value, based on public willingness-to-pay for cultural experiences.
If people are willing to pay for their art then artists don't need a welfare check.
throwforfeds
My wife has won multiple prestigious awards for her writing (novels, memoir). She's published by huge multinational corporations you've heard of. She got paid about $100k for her last novel, which took maybe 5 years to complete. It works out to less than $20k/year, after paying her literary agent. The publisher encourages her to spend her own money on PR (~$20k).
Many of our friends in the literary circles of NYC end up teaching in MFA programs (Columbia, NYU, New School), but then they have very little time for their own work and the pay isn't great (she's been offered $4k to teach a course for the semester at Columbia MFA). Of course we do have friends that have gotten $1 million advances, but that is exceptionally rare and you have to be a bestseller at that point.
So, that's all to say, you can have an artist that from the outside looks wildly successful because of the awards and articles written about them, but they're in reality poor.
cakealert
> She's published by huge multinational corporations you've heard of.
Publishers have an interest in publishing stuff that doesn't sell as long as ticks some other check-boxes to appear prestigious or politically correct for the time.
Should society bear the costs of maintaining artists who produce things that are not in demand or have low value?
Hammershaft
This tracks with what publishers reported on the economics of books.
RHSeeger
It is possible that there can be a gap between "the amount people are willing to pay" and "the amount artists need to live on (food, housing, etc)"
CalRobert
Sure, but you could say the same thing for teachers, foodservice workers, nurses, etc.... yet they are unable to avail of this program, for reasons I don't understand.
philipallstar
Then don't count that money in a fake economic justification. Just say "the bureaucracy would like to assign people your tax money based on vague criteria" and leave it at that.
kingstnap
I think you need to solve the gap the other way, by bringing down the "amount people need to live", ideally to zero, and not by directly paying people.
There is no numerical value of UBI that makes any sense in Canada. Rent is expensive and toys are cheap.
You need universal basic services with income being a thing you use for toys and vices. So this hypothetical artist should instead get paid what other people are willing to pay but need $0 in pay for basic food, water, healthcare, and housing.
philipallstar
> It is possible that there can be a gap between "the amount people are willing to pay" and "the amount artists need to live on (food, housing, etc)"
It's possible. It's possible that there can be a similar gap between "the amount people are willing to pay" and "the amount I need to live on while I pursue my career in snail sniffing". So what? That's why my snail sniffing is purely a hobby.
nilamo
Most artists don't make enough, though? Isn't that famously well known? Picasso was never rolling in it, burned his paintings to stay warm, and had trouble even eating.
quickthrowman
I think you meant Van Gogh instead of Picasso.
Supernaut
Picasso was worth $240 million at the time of his death, and that's in 1976 dollars.
Plenty of artists become very, very wealthy.
dudeinjapan
Last week I also had to burn a Picasso to stay warm.
tikhonj
There is a lot of value in reducing risk, variance and up-front costs for artists. Enough value that, to somebody barely scraping by, it makes the difference between a show/exhibition/etc being doable and not.
It also changes the distribution. I'd say it's a net positive if a bunch of artists get enough money to live on their art rather than the vast majority not making enough and a tiny fraction making the most. It's just a matter of correcting for structural factors that otherwise push towards an exponential distribution of income.
tmtvl
Could be interesting to try negative tax on works from small artists up to a certain value. So when you buy a painting from some person of little name recognition the goverment pays like 20 percent extra up to 2,000 Euro, 10 percent up to 5,000 Euro, and over 10,000 Euro taxes are paid as normal for luxury goods.
Of course you'd need a bunch of bureaucracy to avoid it getting abused, but it would help artists make a living.
NoMoreNicksLeft
Seems like it could be an "infinite money glitch" if the artist and customer are in cahoots. Churn out alot of cheap artworks, even just fake ones, then split the profits. The bureaucracy capable of preventing this would be so onerous, would anyone still be interested in the dole for it?
cma
> If people are willing to pay for their art then artists don't need a welfare check.
Copyright, and, to less extent, ticketed events, are a system of artificial scarcity, would be cool if this had a public domain aspect. At least a limited form within the nation subsidizing it.
tgv
> basic income for Deliveroo riders
UBI (which I consider not feasible) is not meant to make it easier for freeloading companies. If they want delivery personnel, they should pay them sufficiently. The "gig economy" is a large step back, right to the 19th century/ It is not the goal of UBI.
CalRobert
Right - the idea is that with a UBI a deliveroo rider would have more ability to decide they don't _have_ to be a deliveroo rider (unless they want to be of course).
keiferski
It seems perfectly reasonable for a state to want to fund its own cultural legacy and production (in ways outside of the market system), and not just everyone writ large.
This kind of thing is much more common in continental Europe, but for whatever reason the English-speaking world tends to have a problem with funding culture via government money.
CalRobert
My objection to this is that you're taking money away from teachers, waiters, taxi drivers, etc and giving it to artists, as though artists are somehow more virtuous people. It doesn't seem fair.
mikkupikku
Any not to any artists, but only to those the government bureaucrats recognize as being artists. I doubt they'll be paying anybody to write computer programs with artistic merit.
keiferski
Wouldn't your reasoning just apply to basically every situation, until you arrive at the most "virtuous" people receiving money?
I don't interpret this action by the government as bestowing virtue upon artists. It's just a way to fund something considered important culturally. It's not supposed to be fair or just, it's just a way to ensure that culturally-valued things are maintained without having to rely on the market to fund them.
m000
> My objection to this is that you're taking money away from teachers, waiters, taxi drivers, etc and giving it to artists, as though artists are somehow more virtuous people. It doesn't seem fair.
Why do people remember fairness and frugality only when money are spent to directly help those in need?
I didn't see anyone complaining when money are funnelled to industries (e.g. Big Ag) instead of individuals.
rsynnott
> but for whatever reason the English-speaking world tends to have a problem with funding culture via government money.
Unless it's sports or films, naturally; those can get essentially unlimited money.
allknowingfrog
Culture is subjective. Art is entertainment. Maybe the English-speaking world wishes our governments would solve infrastructure problems instead of distracting us with pretty things to look at.
Bayart
France has a long standing program for artists and entertainment technicians and while the niceties can get complex the big idea is that the State guarantees a minimum level of income if you work a minimum amount of hours per year for artistic purposes (507 I think), including teaching and rehearsals.
aydyn
If you look at the World Happiness Report, Ireland's scores have plummeted year over year since 2020. I'm going to go ahead and hypothesize that this program wont make a dent in that.
TimPC
Psychological wellbeing contributes some amount of money though in systems that pay for healthcare (especially when that includes psychiatry). It's also to a degree one of the key things government spending is hoping to produce so if it is actually producing that it's a good use of funds.
I do agree the program needs to make it doable to get the funds in order to become an artist since otherwise it's exclusively for rich artists who can be an artist while waiting for eligibilty.
ptero
This is a regular fellowship. Nothing wrong with those, they can be government (assuming people are OK with this way to spend their taxes) or private. Those are pretty common. I was funded by a private fellowship for a year of my PhD; don't remember the details.
But as others have said, this has nothing to do with the UBI, as this is not universal. The main thing that makes this fellowship unusual, and not in a good way, is the fact that the selection criteria are shrouded in mystery.
lunias
"select artists", "2,000 spots", "eligibility criteria have not yet been announced". I have a hunch about how fair this will be...
frzen
The eligibility criteria was clear for the pilot[1] and has not been announced yet for the scheme from 2026 onwards. They selected 2,000 for the pilot which was due to end in June 2025 and was extended to early 2026 and in the 2026 budget was changed to reflect TFA.
[1] https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...
Survived
I'd have spent my twenties writing free software if I could count on $1500/month.
It would have been so great.
Dumblydorr
As an Irish musician, I’ll note Irish culture has an outsized footprint globally. It’s probably top 3 most successful folk styles, these tunes are played throughout the globe. And counting Irish poets and writers amongst some of the best, I’d say Ireland has historically done well culturally. Whatever the merits of this specific program, there’s a lot of potential cultural value to be kindled.
jabroni_salad
It's just so fun to play :) I'm a bluegrasser and probably half of every session is annexed by reels.
joduplessis
And pubs! I'm not Irish, but it's very comforting going half-way across the world to somewhere like Florence or Hamburg, and going to an Irish pub where everyting feels familiar.
cenamus
Even the prices will be similar to Dublin, regardless of whether the beer usually costa 2€
whimsicalism
who is the other one of the three? Mexico?
pshirshov
I create state-of-the-art FOSS libraries, why I can't qualify? Why clowns and vloggers can but I can't?
username332211
You create things of concrete and tangible value. In the eyes of the many, that makes you unworthy of generosity.
torginus
including the people who actually get paid for using your libraries
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pshirshov
Yeah, I made around $100 in donations over last 8 years.
null
probably_wrong
Since you got plenty of cheeky responses, I'll attempt a more serious one:
You are clearly employable - while not as amazing as it used to be, there is a clear market for software developers. Your job is not at risk of disappearing.
Musicians, though, have it tough - "we" as a society [1] accept that we want to have art but its economic value has been plummeting for a while. And while no one shed a tear when (for instance) stables had to close due to the scarcity of city horses, we do want to try and keep local artists around. And it's not like it's a waste either - if the program costed "€72 million to date but generated nearly €80 million in total benefits for the Irish economy", that's not even a bad deal.
There's of course an argument of "I bet software developers could generate more benefits than artists", which is probably true, but I'd argue artists need it more right now. And nothing stops the program from expanding eventually.
[1] Well, "they" - I'm not Irish.
aleph_minus_one
> I create state-of-the-art FOSS libraries, why I can't qualify?
Because this competes with existing companies.
silon42
Not on iOS or other locked systems.
flanked-evergl
And artists compete with nobody?!
aleph_minus_one
With which influential industry do artists compete?
scythe
I think this accidentally raises an interesting side-point. It's not very easy to define art. It's much easier to define free software. But I am not much closer to understanding how to solve the question "who is writing free software?" than the question "who is making art?"
plasticchris
Not enough connections to the bureaucracy…
01284a7e
[dead]
analog8374
Have you tried creating portraits of famous irish movie stars rendered in macaroni salad?
zeristor
Or ASCII characters
nabla9
Good start, but it should expand to everyone without conditions.
Imagine how easy it would be to start businesses, startups non-profit projects if you had UBI. Bunch of guys come together and everyone knows $1,500 per month each "funding secured forever." Many people people dealing with burnout, mental or physical problems, could ease up and work part time.
walthamstow
Every problem in Anglo societies comes back to housing prices. Most of that 1500 will go to rent, then you're just using public money to pay asset owners. Housing benefit in the UK has these exact flaws.
nabla9
If you think this is relevant, then solution is obvious: Increase taxes on small wages until people can't effort rent and rents will decrease. Hint: it's not relevant.
Housing benefits must be spent on housing. People can use UBI any way they want. With UBI, people can more easily move from expensive cities if housing is not affordable, and then rents and prices must adjust.
The pricing of housing is defined by supply and demand. Every urban economist agrees that the solution is to build more housing. Rent controls don't increase the number of housing units; only building more increases the housing supply. It does not have to be affordable housing; just build more housing units and all price points eventually get an affordable house.
Japan is an island like the UK, but they built the infrastructure and enough housing. At the height of its asset price bubble around 1990, the value of real estate in Japan was higher than that of the entire United States. But they built enough to match the demand. Now their population is in decline, and there are empty houses at the edge of the cities.
CalRobert
One fun thing about Ireland is that building homes in the countryside is nearly illegal, unless you have "local needs" (aka your parents are from there). It's a de-facto xenophobic "Irish people only" building rule, and the EU has ruled it illegal, yet it remains, because the Irish planning system is a reasonable contender for the worst possible way to plan your cities and towns.
dbspin
> Housing benefits must be spent on housing.
It is almost impossible to receive housing benefit in Ireland. Legally all landlords must accept it, practically few to none in major cities do.
> The pricing of housing is defined by supply and demand.
About 20% of Irish homes are bought by investment funds, another huge (difficult to specify) percentage are bought to rent by small to medium sized landlords. The Irish state Land Development Agency build around 3.5k homes per year, meanwhile Davies estimate the state needs around 93k new homes per year. Investing in any kind of investment fund or ETFs is taxed at 41% under the exit tax in Ireland. In addition, the “deemed disposal” rule means investments are taxed as though sold every eight years, even if they haven't been.
These are all artificial extreme pressures on housing in Ireland specifically, that mean that this is not a simple 'supply and demand' problem. It's a supply and demand of people who need housing vs entities who require profit - and have concomitant class affiliations and monies to spend on political influence problem.
netsharc
I saw the headline of this article today https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/15/eu-executive-s...
and I wonder how much of Europe's problems is caused by AirBnB enabling wealthy people to extract riches from rental units, while causing suffering to normal renters...
carlosjobim
AirBnB is a symptom. Even if there was no AirBnB, owners of surplus real estate would never sell, they'd rather let the property rot into ruins.
celeritascelery
7.2 million Irish multiplied by $18,000 a year is about $130 billion. In 2024 the government revenue was $148.3 billion. The government revenue would need to essentially double to make this program universal.
CalRobert
The Republic of Ireland has a population of ~5.4 million people.
patrickmcnamara
This is much closer than I was expecting somehow.
nabla9
Money goes in circle, your counterargument should include multiple steps. The net effect will not be UBI on top of wages.
For the economy as whole nothing is added. The money just flows different route that gives people more power.
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andrepd
Not quite. A huge chunk of those 148 billion are pensions and welfare benefits, which UBI replaces.
rbanffy
Baby steps. This is a very polarizing issue - a lot of people will complain that the receivers do nothing useful for society.
There's also the matter of funding it, but I agree with you. Making it universal and consolidating other programs into it would create some savings as well.
worthless-trash
I feel like artists may have been a poor choice to the subjective value of the outcome of their work, who knows.. maybe they figured this was destined to fail.
rbanffy
Output value being impossible to measure can be an advantage if the goal is to later expand the program. I wonder what indicators will me monitored.
lingrush4
> Many people people dealing with burnout, mental or physical problems, could ease up and work part time.
This is precisely why UBI (also known as socialism) is unsustainable. Most people don't want to work. If you disincentivize them from working, many of them will stop. And then there will not be enough taxpayers to support the government handouts anymore.
dfxm12
Even easier in places with a sane social safety net, where there aren't work requirements on benefits. You can take some time to train on certain skills, if needed.
hshdhdhehd
1500 isn't much, I believe it is below UK minimum wage.
That said the point of UBI is to supplement, get a part time easy going job and with UBI you can chill.
Probably the solution for when AI takes over. So 2075.
patrickmcnamara
Ireland isn't in the UK. Minimum wage for full time in Ireland is about 2281,50 €.
Mistletoe
This reminds me of when I was a child and thought you could just write checks for infinite free money. The money has to come from somewhere.
thrance
I really like the idea of UBI but the math just doesn't add up. Even where I live, France, our entire welfare expenditures (that is supposed to be quite high relative to our neighbors) wouldn't be nearly enough to give each citizen 1,000€/month, which would be barely enough to scrape by on the country side. And that would require sacrificing our socialized healthcare system, our public education, etc.
CaptainOfCoit
Hard to know if it adds up or not, unless some country is brave enough to try it. I'd imagine it'll have an enormous effect on the cost of various types of crimes that would sharply drop, as just as one example. But exactly what the effects and how large they'd be is short of impossible to know.
voxgen
It requires tax increases, and the average earner's UBI will typically balance out the tax increase, meaning they don't directly profit.
UBI isn't about giving everyone free money. It's about giving everyone a safety net, so that they can take bigger economic risks and aren't pushed into crime or bullshit work.
The upper half of society will only see the indirect benefits, like having greater employment/investment choices due to more entrepreneurialism.
Flamingoat
> It requires tax increases, and the average earner's UBI will typically balance out the tax increase, meaning they don't directly profit.
A good portion of my salary is already taken by Tax and the government wastes it. I've seen the waste first hand when contracting for both Local, Nation Government. I was so disgusted by this, I have made every effort to avoid working with them.
I've also seen this waste happen in large charities and ossified corporations. The former also disgusting me as I know they would simply piss away a few thousand on complete BS, that took a whole village to collect and for it not to go towards the stated purpose of the charity. As a result I don't donate to any charities that aren't local.
Every-time someone suggests a tax increase, I know for a fact they haven't seen the waste happen first hand.
> UBI isn't about giving everyone free money. It's about giving everyone a safety net, so that they can take bigger economic risks and aren't pushed into crime or bullshit work.
Giving everyone a safety net will require giving people money that is taken from others. To the people that benefit it is seen as "free" and will become "expected" and won't be treated as a safety net.
Being a responsible adult is about reducing the amount of risk you are taking, not increasing it.
So what you will be doing it teaching people to essentially gamble and people did similar during COVID. Some people took their cheques and put it into crypto, meme stocks or whatever. Some won big, most didn't.
I've met people in my local area that have lost huge amounts of money on risky investments, everything from property developments, to bitcoin. Creating an incentive for risk taking without the consequences is actually reckless, a massive moral hazard and will simply create perverse incentives.
> The upper half of society will only see the indirect benefits, like having greater employment/investment choices due to more entrepreneurialism.
You will be taxing those people more and they will have less to invest. The reason why many people invest is because they have disposable income that they can afford to risk.
By taxing people more (which you admit would have to happen), they will have less disposable income and will be inclined to invest less as a result.
krisoft
The eligibility criteria of the pilot scheme is bonkers. For example a Costume Designer is eligible, but a Jewellery Designer is not. A Make-Up Designer is eligible but a Make-Up Artist is not.
https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...
rich_sasha
Universal income carries enormous moral hazard.
Let's say its fine now, and in 5-10 years also. But in a sense, it is a lifetime commitment to a payment that can sustain people's basic living needs with no output from them.
Because if suddenly you cannot afford this, what do you do? You tell people, after assuring them they can live their life free from fear of hunger death, that suddenly they have to fend for themselves.
We kind of have "universal income" for old people in Europe - it's called pensions. And it's a massive ticking time bomb in exactly this way. They are increasingly unaffordable in the aging society, and chances are sooner or later governments will start curtailing these benefits.
That's bad, but what makes it tragic is you first assured people they are safe and can rely on this.
retrac
You mention pensions already. In my country the profoundly disabled are also provided payments and housing. (Not much and not enough but it's there.) Your argument applies equally to that. We're promising to support them for the rest of their lives. But maybe one day we won't be able to.
I think I see what you're arguing but I am not following the logic. It would seem to be a general argument that can apply to any form of assistance to anyone in need. Don't provide it, because one day you might be bankrupt, and not be able to provide it anymore, but now they'll be dependent on you and so they'll suffer more than they would have otherwise if they'd never been dependent on you.
But one factor I think you maybe haven't considered: poverty often diminishes capacity to function, and to earn income. I realize this is well into just speculative economic philosophy but my own intuition seems to be the exact opposite of yours: assistance of this kind probably improves capacity to be independent, should it one day be withdrawn.
rich_sasha
Pensions and disability payments are by definition targeting a small proportion of the society. It is one thing to make a promise to 10% of the society, and another to 100% of it. And indeed, pensions are becoming tougher as the fraction goes upwards. My point isn't that it is somehow bad that we have these benefits but that they are already quite expensive and look increasingly unsustainable. So with this knowledge, we should be very careful about making much bigger committments.
Further, people on retirement or disability benefits typically don't have much choice. Due to age or circumstances, they cannot really earn a living, or a sufficient one. It's not a choice. We're not promising them an alternative to a productive lifetime. UI is different. If it is to be worth anything, it is surely a promise that you can take economically unsound or risky choices, and if they don't work out, the state has your back. If it doesn't, it's just pocket money. It is actively encouraging people to outsource the financial responsibility for their lives to the state, even as governments globally are struggling to make ends meet.
What is even trickier is that pensions and disability benefits go to people who are generally not very economically active. Extending universal income to everyone kind of expands this to everyone else, i.e. the very people who need to work to make the society work.
We have seen in many places in Europe structural decline of industries, and in various cases, the people affected were given long term unemployment benefits, a little bit like UI. It was probably the right approach - certainly the decent thing to do - but the areas where it happened tended to decrease in productivity and creativity, rather than the other way round. The ones that bounced typically got extensive investment rather than just relied on the improved creativity and industriusness of the people on unemployment benefits.
jt2190
> The announcement follows the release of an external report by UK-based consultants Alma Economics, which found that the pilot cost €72 million to date but generated nearly €80 million in total benefits to the Irish economy. The report also found that recipients’ arts-related income increased by more than €500 per month on average, income from non-arts work decreased by around €280, and reliance on other social programs declined, with participants receiving €100 less per month on average.
So, overall a neutral-to-good outcome, from a financial point of view. I think we can debate about whether it’s necessary for the government of Ireland to fulfill this funding role, but I’m not sure this is the most wasteful thing that a government can do.
john-h-k
> generated nearly €80 million in total benefits to the Irish economy
Approximately 75% of the “benefits” is by the WELLBY framework, which considers each “wellbeing point” to be equivalent to €13,000 a year additional income. This could be a valid metric, but it feels a bit iffy, and without this evaluation it would be a significant cost to the Irish economy, so I do not think this UBI can be considered truly a positive return to the economy
[1] https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/b87d2659/20250929_BIA... - goto ‘Results’
kieranmaine
I only found out about the WELLBY due to this report. I don't have the time or expertise to evaluate it, so I'm interested in why you find it "iffy"?
JonChesterfield
I'd bet the 72M cost was in actual euros that could be spent on other things, while other people have noted that the 80M in benefit was not in euros, but in happiness, which is notable for being difficult to spend on different things.
Some people might speculate that the arbitrary multiplier on happiness-to-euros for the second half was chosen to make it look like a slightly profitable endeavour on superficial examination.
seivan
[dead]
cm2012
I don't see why artist should be a special category deserving of its own UBI. Its no more important than any other job.
racktash
Art and culture is extremely valuable, but is often not profitable / sustainable. Banking is important to society too, but it's already well compensated!
whimsicalism
let’s decide the proper compensation for all jobs based on how much ordinary people feel it is noble/valuable and then pay people accordingly.
food commodity trading? idk sounds speculative and ignoble to me, probably don’t need it - more money for the artists!
racktash
Strawman.
Some things need funding despite being unprofitable. Not everyone will agree, but I believe art/culture (including often unprofitable forms thereof) are worthwhile, and should thus receive public funding (to some degree). I believe the same about justice, policing, education, research etc.
None of this rules allowing a freeish market to operate where doing so "delivers the goods".
mpalmer
> In October, the government released the results of a public survey on the scheme, which found that 97 percent of respondents support the program. However, 47 percent of the 17,000 respondents said artists should be selected based on economic need, while 37.5 percent favored selection by merit. Only 14 percent preferred random selection.
People generally won't prefer the fairest method of selection, but that doesn't mean it's not the best.
whimsicalism
> In October, the government released the results of a public survey on the scheme, which found that 97 percent of respondents support the program.
Very, very hard for me to believe this.
lingrush4
Most surveys can't even get 97% of respondents to agree that terrorism is wrong.
The government is just blatantly lying about these results. There is simply no way 97% of the population (most of whom pay into this system yet receive nothing from it) supports this.
They tried to call this "universal" until people pointed out it is the opposite of universal. This program is a wild distortion of what UBI is meant to be.
Everyone who would _like_ to be an artist, but can't afford to be one, is disqualified. Meanwhile, the acquaintance of mine who sold his house in London at a large profit and retired to a cottage in Westmeath to live off his gains and noodle around on the guitar a bit is a recipient of funds from this program.
Tellingly there's very little information about how to _become_ an artist with this program.
Edit/addendum: Worth noting they've produced some _very_ dubious numbers to claim this program is a net gain economically. https://www.rte.ie/culture/2025/0923/1534768-basic-income-fo...
""" A key component of the total benefits came from psychological wellbeing, which contributed almost €80 million. In addition, the report estimates that audience engagement with the arts generated €16.9 million in social value, based on public willingness-to-pay for cultural experiences. """
And, as much as I like psychological wellbeing (who doesn't!) - saying that it's worth €80 million when you didn't actually get €80 million doesn't help things when it comes time to pay for the program. I'm unsurprised that giving people money improved their psychological well being.
I'd be more excited to see basic income for Deliveroo riders and people working in chippers.