Warning of ‘lurch back to the past’

Northern Ireland remains deeply divided across society and politics and risks lurching back into the past, a report has said.

Separate political cultures have not been reconciled while housing and education has seen deepening segregation, a review for the Community Relations Council added.

Paramilitarism remains a threat, the policing deal is not secure – with many Catholic recruits leaving early – and there has been no strategy for reconciliation or dealing with the past, the document added.

“No new political party has emerged since the 1998 agreement and the stability of Northern Ireland politics is to do with the equilibrium achieved between the two blocs rather than any reconciliation between the two political cultures,” it said.

In last May’s election, the Democratic Unionists attracted only 2 per cent of transfers from nationalist voters and Sinn Fein only 2.2 per cent of transfers from unionists. Both parties outdistanced their rivals the Ulster Unionists and nationalist SDLP.

Paul Nolan, the report’s author, said: “At times Northern Ireland seems to be moving forward, at other times it seems in danger of lurching back into the past.”