Our vision is of ... equality and mutual respect

PSNI crime statistics show that in 2009-2010 there was a 24.3 % increase in sectarian crimes. Sectarianism continues to account for over 50% of all hate crimes.  Peace walls continue to be built.

Research by Connolly et al on the cultural and political awareness of 3-6 year olds in Northern Ireland shows that 13% of 5 year olds identified with either the Protestant or Catholic communities as did one in three 6 year olds.  From the age of 3, Catholic and Protestant children were found to show small but significant differences in their preferences for particular people’s names, flags and in terms of their attitudes towards orange marches and the police. 5 and 6 year olds also showed differences in terms of their preferences for particular combinations of colours and football shirts. 

Support for integrated and shared education remains high. It is worthwhile noting that in the latest Good Relations Indicators published by OFMdFM, 62% of people in 2009 stated that they would prefer to send their children to a mixed-religion school. However, just fewer than 7% of school places are available in the integrated sector and only a handful of schools within the state and Catholic maintained sectors could be described as mixed-religion.

A recent Ipsos Mori poll (February 2011) conducted for the Integrated Education Fund (IEF) clearly shows that the majority of people in Northern Ireland support shared education, with 88% of people in Northern Ireland supporting integrated education and 91% of people supporting schools sharing facilities, partnering and collaborating across different religions, sectors and traditions. 90% of people thought that integrated education is important to peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

Reports of racially motivated crime are becoming all too common and Northern Ireland suffered a huge damage to its international reputation in 2009 when Roma people in Belfast were forced to leave their homes. Life expectancy amongst Irish travellers is the lowest of all groups in Northern Ireland. Migrant workers continue to remain vulnerable to abuses of their human and employment rights.

In order to realise our vision of a peaceful Northern Ireland based on equality and mutual respect politicians and political parties should:

• Publish the results of the consultation on the draft Cohesion, Sharing and Integration Strategy as a matter of urgency.  This should be followed by the agreement of a revised strategy which takes into account points raised in the consultation. The strategy should be backed up by resourced, targeted and output driven action plans.
• Commit to mainstreaming the promotion of shared spaces and increased integration in all funded capital and revenue projects. Northern Ireland cannot continue to sustain the cost of division.
• Commit to ensuring community relations policy and practice is monitored by an organisation outside of government with a strong challenge role and the ability to offer independent advice and support when necessary.
• Take an employment rights approach to tackle the exploitation of migrant workers.  Immigration law may not be a devolved matter but ensuring migrant workers have equal access to essential services and sources of information and enjoy full employment rights is well within the gift of Northern Ireland’s elected members.
• Ensure strong commitments to develop a cohesive education system within the new Programme for Government which ensures educational not sectoral growth. There needs to be a long-term strategic plan that is agreed by the Executive and key stakeholders, and is appropriately resourced and monitored.  Ensure that legislation places a public duty on schools to be shared and inclusive spaces, and encourages mergers and federations. It is critical that there are no legislative impediments to new models of federation and the sharing of resources and governance between schools. Provide resources for those schools wishing to explore mergers and federation models across different sectors. A capital funding model should be developed to incentivise shared and integrated education.