Society in Northern Ireland is breaking down, with soaring levels of unemployment, family splits, mental illness and addiction, a leading UK think-tank 
has warned.
A report from the influential Centre for Social Justice says that the Stormont government needs to get past the issue of the Troubles and begin mending the fractures in communities across the region.
The report acknowledges that the conflict had contributed to the current problems, but said many of the issues were also evident in other parts of the UK.
The study – Breakthrough Northern Ireland [1] – portrays a bleak picture of social disintegration. However, it says that the decline is reversible.
The report shows that one in five households is a single parent family, three in four single parent families live in poverty – 63,000 children and that the divorce rate in Northern Ireland is now 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.
It also shows that Northern Ireland exhibits a frightening level of drug abuse, with the rate of cannabis use having increased by 50 per cent between 2002 and 2006, 30,000 people using cannabis every month and a hundred fold increase in drug-related deaths in the last 40 years.
The report also says that, among 18-29-year-olds, 72 per cent of men and 57 per cent of women binge drink at least once a week.
The report urged the Stormont administration to take action.
“The political system in Northern Ireland, primarily concerned with the necessity of delivering political stability, must begin to provide answers to the severe social problems outlined here, with the aim of reversing intergenerational social breakdown,” it stated.
“Although the hallmarks of conflict remain important factors in social breakdown in Northern Ireland, many people face issues entirely in common with social problems across the UK as a whole.”
But the report found many instances of outstanding work by volunteers and communities in Northern Ireland 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.