Reports reveals social breakdown in Northern Ireland
SECTIONS of Northern Ireland society are in grave trouble, amid soaring unemployment, high levels of mental illness and splintering families, a report concludes today.
The hard-hitting study, to be launched in Belfast this morning, urges Stormont to take action to mend serious fractures in the province that have contributed to drug use and people being trapped on benefits.
The Centre for Social Justice, a think-tank established by former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, paints a stark picture of social disintegration, but claims the decline is reversible.
The report says that the difficulties cannot all be blamed on the history of political violence in Northern Ireland.
Gavin Poole, CSJ executive director, said: "Although social breakdown may be more pronounced in a society marred by a legacy of social division and conflict, the urgent need to tackle the causes of poverty remains the same."
The report says Northern Ireland has the highest level of economic inactivity in the UK, with over half of those claiming income support having done so for more than five years.
One in five households are single parent families, and three in four of those families live in poverty.
Drug-related deaths are up 100-fold in the last 40 years, while the divorce rate is more than five times the level it was 40 years ago.
Key findings the CSJ claimed highlighted the extent of social breakdown in Northern Ireland included:
The highest level of economic inactivity in the UK;
Unemployment which has more than doubled in the last two years;
More than half of those claiming
income support have done so for more than five years;
One in five households was a single parent family;
Three in four single parent families lived in poverty – 63,000 children;
Widespread mental illness, with nearly 50,000 men and women in Northern Ireland out of work because of mental and behavioural disorders;
More than one in ten 35 to 64-year-olds on anti-depressants;
30,000 people using cannabis every month;
Rate of cannabis use up 50 per cent from 2002 to 2006;
Drug-related deaths up 100-fold in the last
40 years;
Among 18 to 29-year-olds, 72 per cent of men and 57 per cent of women binge-drink at least once a week
Divorce rate more than five times the level of 40 years ago.
The study found that some parts of Northern Ireland suffered far worse levels of breakdown than others.
In the Water Works ward in north Belfast nearly four in five births were to unmarried mothers, nearly half the adult population had never married and two-thirds of people had no or low qualifications.
But the report found many instances of outstanding work by volunteers and communities which, it claimed, could provide an example for the rest of the UK.
As a result, the CSJ said the region was in a better position to tackle some of the most difficult issues.
Among the CSJ recommendations were:
Reform of the tax and benefits system;
The introduction of early intervention programmes to help troubled families;
Tackling educational failure;
Placing recovery at the heart of addiction treatment.
Gavin Poole, CSJ executive director, said: "Family breakdown needs family stability. Failure of education needs to be transformed into success.
"Reforming welfare will tackle intergenerational dependency and lack of aspiration by making work pay and releasing its wider benefits.
Effective recovery programmes set people free from addiction.
"Although social breakdown may be more pronounced in a society marred by a legacy of social division and conflict, the urgent need to tackle the causes of poverty remains the same."
The CSJ is an independent think-tank established by former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith in 2004 to seek effective solutions to poverty.
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Monday 28 May 2012
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