Un rapport qui vient d'etre publie (je vais chercher le lien du texte complet) montre que malgres le "processus de paix" les riches sont encore plus riches et les pauvres encore plus pauvres.
IRISH EXAMINER 14/09/2006 -
Poorest 'worse off despite peace process'
The poorest members of society in the North, both Catholic and Protestant, are worse off than they were a decade ago despite British government rhetoric to the contrary, it was claimed today.
The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) said British government polices were ignoring serious community differentials and on occasion exacerbating problems of disadvantage and communal division.
Urgent action is needed, it said.
The day after ministers hailed another drop in unemployment and rise in employment to record levels, the CAJ said in a major report there was a difference between the rhetoric and reality of economic inequalities in the North.
Tim Cunningham, the CAJ’s equality officer, said: “Despite the government rhetoric to the contrary, the reality is that the poorest members of our society, both Catholic and Protestant, are relatively worse off than they were 10 years ago.
“Northern Ireland has the highest economic inactivity rate in the UK, so the idea that Northern Ireland as a whole is benefiting from increased prosperity and economic growth in nonsense.”
The situation of the ‘hidden unemployed’ was getting worse, he said.
Moreover, the British government’s own research showed that programmes such as the New Deal benefit least those who are in most need of employment, he said.
In a damning indictment of policy Mr Cunningham said: “Rather than genuinely tackling poverty in both Catholic and Protestant working-class communities, government appears to be sectarianising the debate.
“It has disregarded major differences in labour market trends between the two communities, failed to target investment effectively at those in most need and has pursued measures such as Shared Future and the Taskforce on Protestant Working Class Communities that at best ignore and at worst exacerbate community differences.”
The report was issued on the 30th anniversary of the fair employment legislation of 1976 , when religious and political discrimination in the workplace was explicitly outlawed in the North.
However, it said there were important sectors of employment and types of work that were still predominately occupied by members of one or other community.
“This finding suggests that the legacy of the past still has an important and potentially destabilising impact on today’s workforce,” it said.
Statistics of registered unemployed had dramatically improved, the report accepted, but it said they did not give the full picture.
“Statistics hide the large number of people who want to work but who cannot find employment.
“An economy which grows at the expense of those in most need is not built on solid foundations and will create longer-term societal problems,” it added.
It also said that major funding tools such as inward investment and public procurement policies offered the potential for challenging some of the legacy of disadvantage, but early signs regarding the strategic direction of such tools were worrying.
Great efforts were made in the negotiation of the Good Friday Agreement, said the report, to ensure the tragedies of the past would never again be experienced.
However the CAJ said: “This report concludes that government is ignoring measures that have proved effective in undermining communal divisions.”
It concluded: “Government is in fact introducing measures which, instead of reducing community divisions, can only exacerbate them and marginalise further the most disenfranchised in our society, both Catholic and Protestant.”