How Ireland proved a basic income for artists actually works

The Europeans | European news, politics and culture

Katy Lee and Dominic Kraemer

Society & Culture, News

4.8 • 274 Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We don’t often get to cover joyful policy news on this podcast, so this week we’re delighted to be discussing that rare thing: a European country that’s investing serious money in culture. For three years, Ireland has been experimenting with paying artists, musicians and other creative workers a basic income. And guess what? The scheme has worked so well that they’re keeping it going. But is the policy all it’s cracked up to be? This week we speak to John Baker, a co-founder of the Equality Studies Centre at University College Dublin and one of the coordinators of Basic Income Ireland, about the logic and limits of Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts. In sillier policy news, we’re looking at why Slovakia has been regulating the speed of kids cycling on the pavement. And we’re diving into Ukraine’s massive corruption scandal: what exactly happened, and just how bad is it for Volodymyr Zelenskyy? You can read interviews with the artists who’ve been receiving Ireland’s Basic Income for the Arts here. This podcast was brought to you in cooperation with Euranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news. But it’s contributions from listeners that truly make it all possible—we could not continue to make the show without you! If you like what we do, you can chip in to help us cover our production costs at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/europeanspodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (in many different currencies), or you can gift a donation to a superfan. We'd also love it if you could tell two friends about this podcast. We think two feels like a reasonable number. This week’s Inspiration Station recommendations: ‘Dopamine’ by Robyn, ‘Choke Enough’ by Oklou, ‘West End Girl’ by Lily Allen and ‘La symphonie des éclairs’ by Zaho de Sagazan. Other resources for this episode ‘The EU Parliament now has a right-wing majority’ - Gulf Stream Blues (Dave Keating’s newsletter), November 14, 2025 ‘Rage, panic, and a glimmer of hope in Ukraine as corruption scandal unfolds’ - The Kyiv Independent, November 15, 2025 ‘No, there is no ‘speed limit’ for pedestrians in Slovakia’ - Euractiv, October 30, 2025 ‘Bratislava built under 4 km of cycle paths last year, leaving cyclists disappointed’ - The Slovak Spectator, April 1, 2025 Produced by Morgan Childs Mixing and mastering by Wojciech Oleksiak Music by Jim Barne and Mariska Martina YouTube | Bluesky | Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | Mastodon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | [email protected]

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast has been produced in cooperation with Uranet Plus, the leading radio network for EU news.
0:11.4	But this podcast would not be possible without the incredibly generous support of our amazing listeners who donate a little bit each month at patreon.com forward slash Europeans podcast. Welcome back to the Europeans.
0:48.0	This is Katie in Paris, and this is your weekly European tasting menu.
0:52.7	Some of it tastes sweet, some of it tastes like corruption,
0:56.1	but all of it will taste relatively fresh, like well within sale by day at least.
1:00.9	Katie's back and so are the food analogies.
1:03.8	Ha ha, Dominic's back and he's a really heavy breather this week's listeners.
1:08.7	I hope you're not put off by all of the... I've got a cold.
1:14.1	I'm sorry. Rough. Sorry. How bad is it? It sounds like I'm going to catch it over here via the
1:21.4	internet. You might. I hope you've had your flu jab. And I hope you're doing better over there than I
1:26.4	am over here. How is life in Paris?
1:28.3	I'm all right, yeah. I've been mostly watching the latest goings on in the European
1:33.5	Parliament with a kind of grim fascination this week. The centre right joining forces with the
1:39.4	far right to dismantle European climate regulation as requested by Donald Trump.
1:45.9	We're not going to talk about that very much this week because we talk about the far right
1:50.2	many weeks and we've got some other stuff that we want to talk about this week.
1:54.7	But I'll link to a good post about it in the show notes in case you want to read up on all
1:58.4	of that because it is important.
2:00.1	Yeah, it's like not the sexiest thing to talk about,
2:02.7	the far right firewall going up in smoke in the European Parliament,
2:06.4	but it does seem quite significant.
2:08.5	I saw our friend Alberto Alamano describing it as a somber day for Europe.
	...

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