New Weekly Basic Income for Artists

I don't believe you.

And if you were talking to a person who is passionate about literature, we'd absolutely be in the top 5 countries of many and the positioning would largely down to personal preference. Joyce or Wilde tend to end up ranked alongside Tolstoy and Faulkner. We're basically top tier in terms of greatest authors of time. Contemporary we've got the likes of Sebastian Barry, Colm Toibin, John Banville, Sally Rooney, Colm McCann and Joseph O'Connor. And I'm omitting loads of names. They're all superb writers and plenty of them very much so rank in current greatest living authors.

I forgot to mention our poets, Yeats, Boland, Kavanagh and Heaney. So ya that's a pretty extensive list of literary Irish talent that the globe is very much so aware of. If you like to read anyway and I'm not talking about basic popular fiction .

Conan Doyle and Stevenson are still being widely read today by the masses and will continue to be widely read by the masses probably for centuries.

I think popular fiction that lasts through the centuries is probably the most important form of literature precisely because it appeals to the masses as more people are impacted by it.Joyce and Beckett may be more stylistic important , more studied , have more critical acclaim etc but honestly how many people actually read their works, whereas everybody in the world knows Treasure Island and Sherlock Holmes.

hope this program spreads to other areas in our society, it just makes sense, it directly helps those that need it, and the businesses that ultimately receive it, hence helps towards job creation, and then of course the circulation of money via taxation, i.e. everyone wins…..

Yet look at the crowds the film fleadh, Galway arts festival, Babaro etc bring in.

It completely punches above it's weight when it comes to the arts (with the likes of Macnas and Druid) when you look at the level of funding Galway receives. As I've said before, Galway doesn't even have a dedicated rehearsal room.

There's many papers that back up the argument. People spend more if they have a regular income, this increasing the VAT receipts. All income earned above the basic income is taxable as well.

…and again, those lower on the socioeconomic scale tend to spend most of what they have, this directly benefits them and the businesses that receive this money, those higher on the scale tend to use more of their money purchasing assets such as property, which only truly benefits those markets, by helping to inflate the price of such assets…..

We're back to the old 'moral hazard' argument. We definitely shouldn't have rescues the developers and banks, AIB twice. Anyone not repaying any loan and interest to the full, should be sent to a debtors prison.

The dole used to be described as the artists subsidy. Can't do that anymore now everyone needs to be "activated"

Do you, or do you not think art and culture is important to a life lived?

Of course it’s important.

But is it any more important than a lad coaching young people 2/3 times a week in various sports, not withstanding the benefit society gets from having children active and not obese?

Theres a local man, retired, who got together a group other retirees and spend their free days cutting grass, tending to flower beds, cleaning up the local graveyard, things like that. You’d often see them with their grandkids doing some as well. All off their own bat, and expense (though the community has started a regular little collection for the old folks annual trip). Is it more important than something like that?

Not for me.

Yeah, the main lad over it, he has only a very small house, looks incredible. Some of the flower beds near the church are just lovely, some arrangement of colours.

It’s the simple things really that have the greatest effect, and there’s nothing more simple than a bit of nature, whatever its form.

Great for the older folks too that they meet up more regularly.

You'd be right if it wasn't for automation removing many jobs.

Fact is, that's already happened. Companies aren't paying as much tax/employers PRSI etc as they used to.

One of the things that needs to be discussed is that we need to increase the tax intake by taxing companies fairly. It's unfair for them to withold profits which should have been money for the exchequer from employing less people