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09 January 2008

Council believes that the Programme for Government (PfG) for Northern Ireland must be underpinned by a vision of reconciliation and transformation for our society. For too many years public policy was framed around the containment of communities as a tool of conflict management leading to a pattern of separation, duplication and social distance. The successful establishment of an inter-community devolved government presents a new opportunity for our Executive to develop its own plan for a reconciled society.

To:                  

From:              The Community Relations Council

                        6 Murray Street

                        Belfast

                        BT1 6DN

Date:                December 2007

RE: Building a Better Future: Draft Programme for Government 2008-11, Draft Budget 2008-11, Draft Investment Strategy 2008-2018.

The Community Relations Council (CRC) exists to promote peaceful inter-community and inter-cultural relations and to actively support the development of a shared and peaceful future.  In recent years, CRC has sought to bring pressure to bear on all public agencies to take seriously the practical implications of the vision of ‘A Shared Future’, which tasked government Departments and agencies with developing and implementing policies that could establish ‘over time, a normal, civic society, in which all individuals are considered as equals, where differences are resolved through dialogue in the public sphere, and where all people are treated impartially.  A society where there is equity, respect for diversity and a recognition of our interdependence”.

Council believes that the Programme for Government (PfG) for Northern Ireland must be underpinned by a vision of reconciliation and transformation for our society.  For too many years public policy was framed around the containment of communities as a tool of conflict management leading to a pattern of separation, duplication and social distance.  The successful establishment of an inter-community devolved government presents a new opportunity for our Executive to develop its own plan for a reconciled society. 

Much progress has been made.  The Executive has set out a vision of building ‘a peaceful, fair and prosperous society in Northern Ireland’ and the Community Relations Council is supportive of this over-arching aim.  However we believe that it can only be achieved when it is underpinned by an explicit commitment to reconciliation based on trust building, mutual respect and real justice across our communities.  

The absence of a practical peace plan or of any detailed strategy aimed at realising these values or objectives is therefore an alarming and obvious omission in a society which is marked out internationally

• by the scale and bitterness of its historic divisions,
• has recently been dubbed the ‘race hate capital of Europe’,
• is emerging from decades of conflict around these issues and
• took at least 13 years to establish stable inter-community government because of mistrust connected to this conflict.

Council recognises the huge and historic nature of the political decisions that created our new political dispensation.  We are also acutely aware of many ongoing issues of conflict, injustice and sectarian and racial division and of the urgent need to take this opportunity to consolidate recent political progress.  Council is not wedded to a specific policy or strategy.  However, we are strongly committed to the underpinning values and objectives outlined in ‘A Shared Future’ and the ‘Race Equality Strategy’ (tackling sectarianism and racism) and commend the desire to make cohesion and peaceful sharing the hallmark of a peaceful, fair and prosperous society. 

It is true that the PfG identifies a number of key strategic objectives which appear to include issues of community relations importance i.e. ‘Promoting tolerance, inclusion, health and well-being’.   However, Council is concerned that the actions associated with the objectives fail to adequately address the ongoing issues of inter-community division which continue to shape the structure of life here.  In the view of the Community Relations Council, the executive needs to make clearer that the absence of a strong commitment to systemic peace building does not mean that this is no longer a formal public priority. 

If we are serious about building a sustainable and just peace, Council believe that there are four primary tasks which must be addressed over time:

• growing a sustainable economy
• building a just society
• addressing the legacy of the past
• embedding trust, safety and partnership. 

We cannot afford to drift back into pretence that our divisions are normal, will simply disappear or have no relevance to social, economic and justice goals.  Avoidance and denial of our past and current conflict related problems by the new political dispensation will create serious long term problems.  Prosperity and economics will falter if we do not act to ensure that sectarianism and racism cease to define where people feel safe to live, work, play, travel to school, meet friends and access public resources. 

Former US Senator George Mitchell George Mitchell, a key player in brokering the 1998 Agreement reacted to news that devolved government was to return to Northern Ireland by cautioning:

It's a deeply divided society, it continues that way. While one can agree on political and security measures, it takes a very long time, generations perhaps, to change people's hearts and minds.  So while this is a very important step, no-one should think that trust and love is going to be breaking out tomorrow between the two communities in Northern Ireland. That will take a long time, but this is a tremendous step forward.

Almost ten years later, sectarianism and racism continue to have a corrosive effect on society.  The figures speak for themselves:  

• 1,695 sectarian incidents and 1,217 sectarian crimes in NI in 2006/07.  The number of racist incidents increased by 11.9% and racist crimes by 15.4% on previous year.  (PSNI Hate Incidents and Crime 2006/07).
• Attacks on churches/chapels/schools/orange halls was greater in 2005 than 2004. (PSNI)
• Over 1/3 of Census Output Areas in NI are segregated (that is , 90% or more people are from one community background).  30% of Protestants live in mainly Protestant areas and 44% of Catholics live in mainly Catholic areas. (Census 2001).
• 36% of Protestants would avoid work in a mainly catholic area and 37% of Catholics would avoid work in a mainly protestant area (NILTS 2005).
• The majority of people believe that schools are not yet fully effective at preparing pupils for life in a diverse society or at encouraging understanding of the complexity of our history (NILTS 2005)
• More than 2/3 of people believe there is more racial prejudice than there was 5 years ago (NILTS 2005)
• 1% of people are very prejudiced and 24% of people say they are a little prejudiced against people from minority ethnic communities (NILTS 2005).

None of this can be eradicated without concerted and joined-up action.  Council views the PfG as a critical opportunity to create this co-ordination, thus shaping the future of society.  However, whilst there are subtle acknowledgements that Northern Ireland is a community emerging from conflict we are concerned at the absence of any explicit or direct link of peace-building to the plans of each of the various government departments or any linking of a strategy for shared resources to the goals of new investment, creating sustainable communities, tackling disadvantage and improving education.  Indeed, the only explicit reference to these issues is within smaller spending plans for OFMDFM and Education.  The danger is that we will return to the days when government failed to name the realities of fear, separation, exclusion and even violence, not because they are absent but because it is deemed politically expedient to do so.  For this reason, the Community Relations Council continues to believe that an overarching Peace Plan and strategy will be required, including actions and targets for all Government Departments. 

CRC is strongly supportive of the view that action must include a commitment to growing an open and flourishing economy.  The overarching goal of prosperity marks the return of political leadership Northern Ireland to the mainstream concerns of every other government in Europe and North America.  However, nobody can be in any doubt that spreading prosperity depends on embedding lasting social stability.  

Northern Ireland cannot return to textiles and heavy engineering (though H&W is planning to build wave-energy machines). In his book The Rise of the Creative Class the American urban development expert Richard Florida demonstrates that the relative economic performance of US cities is directly related to the cultivation of a culture of openness and tolerance.  Only a society where people can peacefully interact, live and move safely through all areas and access all public resources can attract and retain international investment, welcome both tourists and newcomers, and provide a quality of life which is attractive and desirable. Growing a culture of openness and tolerance is only one of the conditions of an economic renaissance, but it is a necessary one.  Only cultures that promote open interaction and a spirit of creativity will attract the qualified, specialist workers crucial to making today’s ‘informational’ economies work. 

Peace and stability are thus crucial to any strategy of doing business. The Community Relations Council endorses the core objective of ‘Growing a dynamic innovative economy’ and believes business has a hugely important role to play in helping to make the dream of a future shared by all a meaningful reality.  Business is good for peace and peace is good for business.  Good business relationships and strong relationships across society are interdependent as business will also be a beneficiary of the stability that improved community relations would bring.  There is no better way to cement our interdependence than through trade and investment.  Business representatives like Alan Gillespie have argued that increased island-wide job promotion is common sense in a globalised economy.  For that to happen, however, we need to secure reconciliation across the whole of these islands, allowing Northern Ireland to begin to enjoy prosperity comparable to that in the Republic in recent years.

Tackling poverty in Northern Ireland is also directly connected to creating a new culture of freedom from fear.  Poverty is endemic at interfaces. Where violence is rife or social tensions dominate, there are always easier places for businesses to go.  Poverty, in its turn, contributes hugely to violence, creating a complex nexus of multiple disadvantage.  It alarming that two weeks before the renewal of devolution there were 46 officially recognised ‘peace walls’ (plus 11 gates) dividing working class communities, the most recent being constructed at an integrated school (Hazelwood, North Belfast).  In a 2006 publication on segregation in Belfast it was reported that out of a survey of 9,000 individuals living within interface communities 78% of respondents provided examples of at least three publicly funded facilities that they did not use because they were located on the ‘wrong’ side if an interface[1] The survey also revealed that the vast majority of respondents in both republican/nationalist and unionist/loyalist communities (81% and 72% respectively) stated that on least 3 occasions they had not sought a job in an area dominated by the ‘other’ community.[2] 

All talk of changing the existing patterns of social disadvantage is meaningless if we fail to acknowledge the impact of fear and distance, the fact that we live in divided society and that much mistrust remains within and across communities.  This will continue to have an impact on where people choose to live, how, what and where our children are educated, how and where investment is attracted, where tourists visit and inclusive sustainable regeneration.  Moreover the costs associated with interfacing are significant i.e. the direct costs of constructing and maintaining the physical structures are amplified by the negative imagery of the walls and the physical dereliction which impacts on investors and tourism.  Council wants the Executive to acknowledge ‘chill factors’ and how they present additional barriers to mobility and labour.

Children are continuing to experience poverty which is a key policy objective for the Assembly.  A recent  report by Save the Children stated that ‘all the most disadvantaged urban schools were situated in areas that have very high levels of child poverty and that score high on most deprivations indicators….they were also in areas that had suffered most in the course of the conflict’.  Furthermore in schools where children had to pass through the ‘other side’s’ area on the way to and from school, the fear of getting beaten up or a sectarian assault was greater than those children who didn’t go to school in conflict-affected areas. [3]

It is not just urban areas that experience community divisions.  Work by the Rural Community Network in 2002 and 2004 found minority communities living in fear in many parts of Northern Ireland, and further research by St Columb’ s Park House and Fermanagh Rural Community Development Initiative reported feelings of exclusion, isolation and marginalisation from some sections of the community. 

Segregation is not a matter of simple choice, but often a matter of fear.  Forced integration is no solution, but the free and open availability of housing and access to public resources is a fundamental right in any society calling itself democratic.   High walls, at the physical interface or between communities, are not a long term solution to deep divisions as evidenced throughout the last thirty eight years of conflict.  Sustainable peace will require many years of focused work and the Assembly must set the direction towards a normal civic society in which all people are of equal value, where differences are resolved through dialogue, and where people are treated impartially. A society in which there is equity, respect for diversity and a recognition of our interdependence.

The priority area: ‘Promote Tolerance, Inclusion and Health and well-Being’, advocates creating a sustainable, peaceful and fair society. CRC believes that these general goals must be strengthened with targeted government goals and a plan that identifies robust government action aimed at supporting reconciliation for our society.  In common with the strands of the Agreement, these should have steps relating to Northern Ireland as well as dimensions ensuring a North-South and East-West approach.  Vindicating equality and human rights will depend on growing a society in which people acknowledge and defend the insight that every person counts in a civilised society.  Watchwords such as social transformation and inclusion must be hinged on the principles and ethos of cohesion, sharing, co-operation and reconciliation.  An integrated society is not one in which everyone is the same, but a society in which people of difference all play a part together.

Within the PfG, there is reference to continuing efforts to address divisions and an acknowledgement that sectarianism and racism continue to exist and council welcomes this inclusion.  However Council would like the inclusion of corresponding Key Goals which would detail how central government will achieve the objective of tackling these historical divisions and new challenges.  Whilst the issues are again mentioned within the department headline actions of OFMDFM it should be clearly specified that central government will take a lead role with corresponding targets.  The Assembly must lead and not appear to leave peace building to external investors to tackle via the Peace III programme.  Council welcomes the separate commitment to deal with Victims and Survivors issues within OFMDFM.  For a truly peaceful society to emerge, work cannot be limited to support for local government or voluntary and community action.  The loss of ‘A Shared Future’ means that the impression is given that the state has no role in reconciliation.  CRC, in contrast, believes that all policies for education, training housing, regeneration, culture, local government, security and investment must be developed in conjunction with a good relations lens if real change is to be made.  

Draft Budget

The principles of peaceful interaction allowing sharing and aimed at embedding trust and reconciliation should be embedded across all government departments and need to be reflected in the different department budgets.  Specific allocation of resources will be required, and Council would like assurances that money already committed to collaboration and sharing initiatives will not be re-allocated and that policy directives aimed at tackling sectarianism and racism will be high priority for the new devolved administration. 

Whilst CRC acknowledges there will be many challenges we remain resolute that building a peaceful society must remain a central theme throughout the budget and therefore adequate resources be made available to all government departments to progress this priority area.  The budget must recognize the interconnectedness between prosperity and creating a stable society.  But stability after our history and with the growing reality of new arrivals will not happen through declarations. 

Council is under no illusions that tackling these divisions is the programme for several PfG’s.  However, the legacy of the conflict cannot be ignored or downgraded.  Indeed it must shape all priorities and both the Executive’s public service agreements (PSA’S) and draft budget should take into account the impact of sectarianism and racism on how to develop and deliver the vision of a ‘Better and sustainable future for all’ e.g. the link between segregation and access to employment; impact on the development of a vibrant tourism market; impact of conflict on disadvantaged communities; a vision of sharing and reconciliation within education – both formal and informal, cross-sectorally and cross community; how better community relations can improve investment opportunities; and incorporating good relations into housing and regeneration opportunities. 

Council acknowledges the commitment given in PSA 7 to ‘Making Peoples’ Lives Better’ and welcomes under objective 3 the intention to ‘Promote equality and the enforcement of rights’ with specific actions relating to the implementation of both a ‘programme to improve societal relations and the Racial Equality Action Plan’.  Whilst it is unclear if the inter-community aspect of this statement will be a policy with aims, objectives and action plans, Council believes that we need a robust framework with resourced actions enhanced on a cross-departmental basis and not confined to OFMDFM.  All departments should be tasked with developing and implementing action plans that will tackle sectarianism and racism.

Building networks, collaboration and partnerships which span historic divisions and which embody a commitment to the inclusion of all is not a luxury.  Indeed it is our view that they should be the watchwords of the future, acted upon on a cross-departmental basis in order to maximize all opportunities e.g. sports, education, sustainable communities and youth provision.   Recent research revealed more students from a Protestant community background leave NI to study, with increasing numbers deciding not to return to find work; the tourism sector contributes less to the NI economy than any other UK region and the Republic of Ireland; and issues around creating shared spaces in towns and cities.  All of these public policy areas should reflect on how a divided society can have a negative impact and therefore devise measures to combat and tackle this legacy. 

With specific reference to the Draft budget of OFMDFM, Council would like assurances that community relations and race relations remain a high priority for that department.  Council acknowledges that community tensions have reduced significantly in certain areas but difficulties remain.  Council believes that Peace III funds tasked with tackling sectarianism and racism should be clearly viewed as additional to a central government budget.  It is important that Government commits itself to developing and financing a long-term vision of reconciliation.  It is therefore important to officially recognise that for many communities segregation and division continue to have a detrimental impact of their lives, and an adequate budget allocated to address these policy priorities. 

Council welcomes OFMDFM’s commitment to the Victims and Survivors community and looks forward to the appointment of a Victims Commissioner – this office needs to be satisfactorily resourced to implement measures that will have a positive impact on this sector.

Recommendations

• Overarching vision that acknowledges the remaining divisions, tensions and the impact of the conflict on our society. 
• Incorporate a vision of reconciliation and transformation into the draft PfG, Draft Budget and Draft Investment Strategy.
• Develop a locally agreed Government plan to address the legacy of the conflict, building on the vision and values of A Shared Future. This should embed the principles of collaboration, sharing and transformation on a cross-departmental basis. 
• Develop corresponding action plans, with specific objectives and goals.
• Allocate appropriate resources to finance a long-term strategy.
• Resources must be in addition to Peace III funds.