The Politics of Six-County Poverty

BY ÁINE Ní BHRIAIN

According to a recently-released report on poverty and social exclusion produced by researchers at Queens University and the University of Ulster, one in three people in the Six Counties are living in poverty, and more than a third of those are children.

Although the statistics are shocking, the fact is that poverty levels in the Six Counties have always been higher than in England, Scotland or Wales. Partition created a system and society based on inequity and that unique legacy must be acknowledged and addressed if the issue of poverty is to be tackled in an effective way.

For example, while anti-poverty groups are united in their demand that the minimum wage and benefit levels be raised, those kinds of changes currently come not from within a Six-County Assembly, but from Westminster itself.

Likewise, when Westminster plans things like rate increases, it does so based on trends and established practices within England, and does not take into account the fact that it costs more to live in the Six Counties.

Food, clothing and heat are all more expensive in the North, housing is more difficult to come by, and our rate of wages is lower. With the prospect of a state-imposed water tax looming, many families in need could face further hardship, while an already overstretched and under-resourced health service is left battling rising rates of illness, disease and infant mortality.

The TSN programme (Targeting Social Need) was launched by the British state back in 1991 in response to research which showed evidence of "significant differences in the socio-economic profiles of the Catholic and Protestant communities".

While 'New' TSN remains an ongoing work in progress, it recently projected that "over time, the skewing or targeting of resources towards the most disadvantaged groups and areas will 'erode' socio-economic differentials between the two main communities". However, this approach does not address the inequities at the heart of the issue. It simply attempts to deal with the results, not the cause.

Sinn Féin's Upper Bann Assembly candidate, Dara O'Hagan, summed it up best when she said recently: "I am deeply concerned at the pervasive 'rising tide argument' that unionists such as David Trimble hold to — namely that improved economic conditions will lift all people equally. The truth is that for those people who face unacceptable barriers, the rising tide will not lift them onto a level playing field."

TSN claims that the widening gap in wellbeing between the haves and have nots "provides fertile breeding ground for crime, anti-social behaviour and paramilitary activity and helps to sustain and fuel inter-community conflict".

But this ignores a basic reality of life in the Six Counties — violence here is not simply a response to poverty. Unionist paramilitaries attack Catholic homes not because they are deprived or socially excluded, but because they are serving a bigger and more sinister exclusionist political agenda.

So while pouring resources into deprived communities will help in some respects, issues like interface violence and inter-community conflict will remain because no effort is being made to reverse the tide of sectarianism and intolerance that fuels it — either on the ground or within the corridors of power.

As a result of our continuing political legacy, issues like unemployment, health, education, housing, and transport have always come second to the political agenda of the state and, in somes cases, were ignored altogether.

An essay from an information pack produced by the Northern Ireland Anti-Poverty Network points out that, "before and during the civil rights campaign the unionist monolith ensured that any of the few resources made available were allocated along sectarian lines. Investment found its way to those areas which would best bolster and promote the unionist hegemony."

Not to mention the unionist vote.

So while it's true that poverty may not recognise religion, religion and national identity are factors in the Six Counties' cycle of poverty — a reflection of the political, judicial and economic structure of an exclusionist society.

TSN states that, "compared with Protestants, Catholics are over-represented among the unemployed and consequently they fare less well than Protestants on a number of socio-economic indicators such as income".

This is echoed in another recent report, compiled for the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFM/DFM) in the Stormont Executive. It states the labour market continues to be the primary source of disparities between the two main communities, with working-age Catholics remaining less likely to be in a job compared to their Protestant counterparts.

Catholics, it says, are more likely to be unemployed and remain at greater risk of living on lower income and of experiencing multiple deprivation. The Save The Children organisation is more specific. It says children and young people from Catholic families — particularly those who live in North and West Belfast or Derry, Strabane, or Cookstown — are more likely to be living in poverty than anyone else.

While it is true that much of the Protestant working class has also suffered neglect and social exclusion, they were also afforded a few advantages.

Jobs may have been hard to come by, but Protestants had more places to look for them, and it's common knowledge that many companies operated an unofficial policy of "preferential" hiring. If a Catholic and Protestant were competing for the same position, more often than not it would go to the Protestant.

While anti-discrimination legislation has cut down on some of this, many Catholics are still unable to accept employment that would require them to work in areas where they cannot feel safe or secure and therefore their employment opportunities remain limited. One only has to site the example of postman Daniel McColgan to know why. McColgan, a Catholic postman, was on his way to work at a sorting office within a unionist estate when he was shot dead by the UDA.

Even something as simple as a job application can still raise suspicion within the hearts of many nationalists. Questions that would appear innocuous to someone from England — such as address, post code, or educational background — are red flags, and the mandatory form which accompanies applications, asking candidates to detail which religious community they belong to, is intrusive and could even be viewed as a violation of privacy.

Housing is another area where the sectarian nature of the state remains evident.

The NI housing executive estimates that 70% of our estates are segregated. TSN admits there are are still "striking differences in the geographical distribution of Catholics compared to Protestants" and that "the former are considerably more likely to live in the more deprived areas than are Protestants".

Everyone has the right to quality housing, and those who cannot afford one should be provided with one no matter where they live, but housing must be allocated on the basis of most urgent need.

When registering with the Housing Executive, applicants are asked to list their preference with respect to location. By "choosing" to remain within a nationalist area, Catholics face longer waiting lists in areas that are already filled to capacity. But since a Catholic family could not move into a unionist neighbourhood without being placed in danger, they don't really have any "choice" at all.

Last year, the DSD allotted a total of £25m to develop housing for three unionist areas - Glenbryn, Mountcollyer and Gainsborough in North Belfast - in spite of the fact that 81% of those on housing waiting lists are nationalists and their rate is rising by 5% per year.

The unionist estate of Glenbryn for example, has a population of 900 people. It was awarded £8 million for new and existing housing. Meanwhile, the nationalist New Lodge — where nearly 7,000 people reside in an area of eleven acres -- received only £1 million.

The New Lodge is currently rated number two on the list of most deprived areas in Belfast, and more than 62% of its households are reliant on benefits. More than half of its unemployed residents are between 35 and 65 years of age — years when people would tend to be at their most productive in the workplace and are providing for their families.

Sinn Féin's Gerry Kelly says housing — in particular public/social housing -- is in crisis throughout Ireland and nowhere is this as stark as North Belfast.

"There are not enough houses," says Kelly. "Those we have are not in an acceptable condition and we are not building enough new ones. The Housing Executive is not building any new homes. All new housing is being left to assorted housing associations and private developers. We cannot have partial or political solutions that will only store up problems for the future and reinforce the patterns of discrimination and division of the past."

According to TSN, poverty and social need penetrate both main communities in approximately equal and significant numbers. However, it too admits that "disadvantage amongst Roman Catholics is significantly more spatially concentrated, while Protestants are more evenly spread across wards". This is a reflection of the way Catholics are "hemmed in" with respect to housing and employment.

Social exclusion is not merely about income levels; it is also about quality of life. It is about access to transportation, health care, eductional and recreational opportunities and facilities. It is about art and creative expression, about physical environment and self-empowerment. As Larry McArdle of the St Vincent de Paul Society says, it is "about rights and relationships; about how people are treated and how they regard themselves; about powerlessness, exclusion and loss of dignity".

Nationalists living in the Poleglass, Twinbrook and Lagmore estates pay their rates to the City of Lisburn. The money is used to fund civic immunities such as hospitals, schools, and community centres, but Catholics in those areas are unable to access the amenities they help pay for because those services are located in unionist areas where they would not be comfortable or secure. There is not even a bus route to Lisburn from the Colin area.

This type of situation is also familiar to nationalists in North Belfast. Catholic parents from Ardoyne for example, are more than reluctant to take their children to the local recreation centre because it lies in the heart of the unionist Ballysillan area. It is not unusual for those brave enough to make the journey to find themselves or their children the victims of intimidation or assault.

Not too long ago, Belfast City Council decided to withdraw funding for art projects which had been approved to help six deprived nationalist areas in North Belfast as part of a city-wide initiative.

DUP Councillor Nelson McCausland had objected to the original proposal, insisting that the New Lodge, Newington and Ligoniel areas should be cut from the list of six. He claimed the three areas could not be defined as being within the Oldpark ward. City Council agreed with him. They voted to slash £18,000 from the original funding, resulting in the loss of arts projects for all three areas.

In another example of how the subtle mechanisms of government can be manipulated to serve the bigotry of those in power, the DSD recently drew down £12 million of "peace money" through their European unit and, upon receiving it, decided to change the criteria for its distribution.

"Suddenly we were being told that that money could only be used to assist communities with a population of more than 500 people and less than 5,000," says Sinn Féin's Michael Ferguson. "The DSD didn't put it through TSN, and they didn't equality proof it - which is a requirement. The next thing anyone knew, 80% of Catholic wards were ineligible for any of the funds."

The DSD Minister at the time was the DUP's Nigel Dodds.

Nationalists may also be familiar with other, more public examples of the institutionalised double standards that continue to exist.

Belfast City Council has repeatedly refused to fund any St Patrick's Day celebrations, with some unionist politicians calling the festivities "exclusionist and sectarian".

However, the same City Council had no problem providing the unionist Shankill with a huge Christmas tree at the request of local representatives, including UDA associate John White.

The Norway fir, reportedly costing £10,000, was erected and decorated by Johnny Adair's 'C' Company and White later admitted that the Council had provided the area with a similar tree for the previous three years.

While nationalist theatre companies like Dubbeljoint are being refused a share of public lottery money to cover production costs, loyalist bands with open links to unionist paramilitary groups are receiving it without challenge.

The South Belfast Young Conquerors band — which received £8,614 of the public cash - has even dedicated an entire page on their official website to the memory of ruthless loyalist Stevie McCrea, who was shot by the IPLO in 1989.

McCrea had served a life sentence for the remorseless killing of 17-year-old Twinbrook youth, James Kerr, in 1972. After being arrested at the scene, McCrea told the RUC that he had killed the Catholic teenager because he was a "Fenian bastard".

If poverty in the Six Counties is to be tackled in any meaningful way, progress must not be allowed to hinge upon the inequitable political agenda of the British state or of unionism. Sectarian undercurrents within the systems of government must be acknowledged and eradicated and the rights of every individual and community must be protected and championed equally. Poverty is already about exclusion — old mandates need not reinforce that.

While TSN does call for this approach, it remains to be seen if and when it will be put into consistent practice. Eradicating poverty requires real political will. Unfortunately, that is not always in evidence.