The Real Troubles

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