Trust in Northern Ireland politicians is “strikingly low” and nearly the worst in Europe, a new survey has found.
The latest Northern Ireland Life & Times survey found that relatively high levels of support for the Stormont Assembly and Good Friday Agreement were not matched with faith in the leaders running them.
In fact, only Ukraine, Croatia and Bulgaria suffered from lower approval ratings among some 30 European countries.
Trust in the PSNI was twice that of Northern Ireland’s politicians, the survey found.
Using a scale of 0-10, Northern Ireland politicians were rated at 2.6 which was lower than politicians in the Republic (4.2) or Great Britain (3.1).
This did not mean the Northern Ireland public did not trust other social institutions and authorities, with trust ratings including 6.6 for scientific experts and 5.4 for police.
Report authors Professor Katy Hayward from Queen’s University and Dr Ben Rosher from the University of Gothenburg explained that the lowest trust was from a middle ground who did not identify as unionist or nationalist.
“This is perhaps not surprising given that the institutions are designed to accommodate a unionist/nationalist binary,” they said.
“But what may be surprising to some is that the community that has most trust in the devolved institutions is nationalist.
“This finding, however, is perhaps related to the fact that nationalists have the highest level of trust in political parties whereas those who are ‘neither’ have the lowest levels of trust in parties.”
The report adds that while people in Northern Ireland continue to see the 1998 Good Friday Agreement as a necessary basis to govern Northern Ireland, they have “worryingly little confidence” in the political actors operating within that system.
“In these results we see a remarkably clear message coming from NILT respondents as to the political future of Northern Ireland: it needs to include devolved institutions, in accordance with the framework of the Agreement, but these need to be reformed to reflect a society which is more Irish and less divided.”
