Budget 2027 leaves the people who make Ireland’s culture facing another year of falling real pay.
The Government has described the €2.5 million increase in Arts Council funding as “record funding”. It is a 1.8% increase, after a year of standstill, at a time when inflation is running at around 3%. In real terms, that is a cut. It comes when demand on the Arts Council is at an all-time high and arts organisations are already spending down their reserves to stay afloat.
This matters because Arts Council funding is where artists’ fees and arts workers’ wages come from. When that funding falls in real terms, organisations cut programmes, cut hours, or ask artists to do the same work for the same fee they were paid years ago. The Government’s own research shows how little room there is left to cut. At the start of the Basic Income for the Arts pilot, more than half of the artists surveyed were living in enforced deprivation, unable to afford basic items such as heating or a warm coat. That is roughly three times the rate in the general population. This is despite artists being far more highly educated than the wider workforce: 86.5% hold a third-level qualification, compared with 53% of the general population.
Wages tell the same story. Median weekly earnings in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector are €454, just 62% of the national median. Only hospitality pays worse. More than one in four artists and arts workers earn below the living wage, and more than one in ten earn below the minimum wage. Over a third say they find it difficult to make ends meet, compared with 7% of households nationally. A budget that shrinks the pot in real terms guarantees these figures will not improve.
This Wednesday, more than 300,000 public sector workers, including tens of thousands of our fellow SIPTU members, will strike because the value of their wages has been eroded this year. Praxis stands with them. Arts workers know that erosion well, but most of us have no pay deal to strike over, no pay scale, and no guarantee of a minimum rate. That is why as part of our Rates of Pay Campaign we will shortly launch our Pay and Conditions Report. This report follows from a survey we took with artists and art workers, it highlights the poor pay and working conditions facing artists. Our goal is to set out fair minimum rates for artists and arts workers across the sector.
Praxis is also concerned by a growing contradiction in Government policy. Minister Chambers speaks about helping artists to “remain in creative work” while across Government, artificial intelligence is championed as one of the greatest opportunities for growth, with public money committed to accelerating its adoption. For many artists, that adoption is already a direct threat to their livelihoods. Illustrators are losing commissions to generative AI, and musicians are seeing their work devalued by AI-generated content, much of it built on artists’ work taken without consent or payment. The Government cannot claim to support artists’ incomes while also promoting technologies that are undercutting them, without any protections in place for the workers affected.
Praxis welcomes the review of the tax treatment of theatre production costs. It is a long-sought step and we hope it will lead to a full Performing Arts Tax Credit. The new Arts Capital Investment Fund, though modest and funded last year, is a welcome first step towards dedicated capital support for arts spaces, and we hope to see it grow. However, overall arts and culture capital funding has fallen in this Budget.
We look forward to the announcement of the new recipients of the Basic Income for the Arts. Praxis set out its position on the scheme in detail in October 2025. While we welcome the scheme’s retention, now is the time to discuss how it can be expanded to all artists and placed on a statutory footing.
Artists and arts workers who are concerned about pay, conditions or the impact of AI on their work are encouraged to join Praxis.
Divided we beg, united we bargain!
