I realise that it’s most improper to read the article on this here orange website, but it produced an economic benefit greater than the cost, which was fairly minimal. There are worse things for governments to spend money on.
The idea that the average artist in Ireland is in any way an ally of the FF/FG coalition is also pretty farcical.
The program was championed by the greens, who would be generally well-liked by artists (and myself, even though I dislike this policy personally).
Though they're somewhat less-liked since going in to coalition with FF/FG.
The benefit was greater than the cost if you consider the psychological well-being aspect of it, but it was not self-supporting economically (i.e. it's difficult to see how this is scalable).
> but it produced an economic benefit greater than the cost
Except it doesn't unless you include the artists feeling good about getting free gibs as an economic benefit, which the calculation used for the article does.
Some of them may be politically disconnected or apathetic, but I can almost guarantee that not a single recipient of this funding is a political ally of the current Irish administration.
Ultimately this is a fairly low cost programme, a very tiny % of revenue expenditure, & looks good to an electorate that are generally in favour of supporting Irish cultural assets. I would expect to hear unpopular aging conservative politicians bring this up a lot in the next election cycle while attempting to appeal to the younger vote.
I think you're assessing this with a North American point of view. I have local knowledge, and I can tell you that the money is being given to people who will not under any circumstances vote for the centrist politicians who are handing it out.
