NORTHERN IRELAND is suffering from “crippling levels” of social collapse marked by joblessness, family breakdown, mental illness and drink and drug addiction, according to a new study from a think tank founded by former British Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.
The London-based Committee for Social Justice (CSJ) in its report published in Belfast yesterday urged the public and politicians to look beyond the troubles of the past 40 years and address what the body says are “deep-seated social problems”.
Mr Smith, who as the British Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is seeking to radically overhaul Britain’s social welfare system – a project that is causing considerable debate and controversy in Britain – travelled to Belfast for the launch of the 28-page document.
Mr Smith said the “cultures of dependency and joblessness” must be dealt with head-on. The focus must be on getting people off welfare and into work to help address social breakdown.
“The impact of worklessness is felt right across society. Among other things it is linked to family breakdown and poorer mental and physical wellbeing. It fuels both adult and child poverty,” he said.
“So unless we deal with it we simply will not initiate the social recovery, as well as the economic recovery, that is so urgently required over the next few years – here and throughout the UK,” added Mr Smith.
The document, Breakthrough Northern Ireland, reports that the North has the highest level of economic inactivity in the UK and that unemployment 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 while one in five households is a single-parent family.
It reports that there are nearly 50,000 men and women in Northern Ireland out of work because of mental and behavioural disorders and that more than one in 10 of those between 35 and 64 years old is on antidepressants.
It also finds that the divorce rate is more than five times the level of 40 years ago and that drug-related deaths are up 100-fold in 40 years.
Gavin Poole, executive director of CSJ , said there were pathways out of the poverty that largely caused social breakdown.
“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,” he said.