Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, spoke today in London, to UK parliamentarians and union representatives - in particular, the Performers’ Alliance All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG).

The Minister was invited to speak to the group in Westminister about the ground-breaking Irish Basic Income for the Arts scheme (BIA), a pilot scheme described as "innovative" and with the "potential to transform how the arts is funded in Ireland."

The APPG was established to work alongside the unions of the Performers' Alliance - Equity, the Musicians' Union and the Writers' Guild of Great Britain. Together, they aim to raise issues affecting performers and writers across the arts community and to provide a forum for issues relating to arts and culture policy.

The APPG are now considering the issue of minimum income guarantees for performers, hence their interest in speaking to Minister Martin about the BIA scheme and any learnings from the Irish pilot that could be useful for them, going forward.

Minister Martin was "pleased" to be invited to speak to the Performers’ Alliance All-Party Parliamentary Group about this pilot scheme, which has been a key priority for the Minister.

"This pilot scheme will research the impact of a basic income style payment for artists and will inform future Government policy on how best to support artists and the arts sector," Martin said. "There is huge interest internationally in the scheme and I am happy that Ireland leads the way in innovations as to how best to support artists and the arts sector."

The Basic Income for the Arts scheme was launched back in April of this year, attracting over 9,000 applications.

2,000 recipients received their first payments last week, allowing the data collection and research project to begin.

Speaking about the number of applicants, Minister Martin said: "There is clearly a strong appetite for this type of support and I believe not just in the arts but in many sectors of the economy. Basic Income as a concept is a huge topic of debate around the world today."

You can read Minister Catherine Martin's presentation at Westminister, in full - here.