Faith forum
Church-based work gets extra government support.
Voluntary work by Christian and other religious groups will be recognised in a new forum, the Assembly has been told.
Eighty-six per cent of people identified with some form of religion in the province’s 2001 census. Within that rough grouping, 46.7 per cent were Catholic and 52.9 per cent were from Protestant and other non-Catholic churches; the other religions accounted for a 0.35 per cent share, totalling 5,028 people. This, of course, does not translate into people practising a faith in some way; surveys suggest that figure is around 40 per cent of the population.
On 2 February, the Assembly debated a DUP motion calling for the Social Development Minister to commission a study into faith-based organisations’ work in Northern Ireland. A similar piece of work has been done in Wales, and found that organisations tended to be well-established in their neighbourhoods. The total economic value of their work was an estimated £102 million, including voluntary work which would otherwise be paid, but only 27 per cent indicated that they had received funding from government.
Michelle McIlveen explained that in Northern Ireland this work “goes far beyond the simple stereotyping of the Sunday morning service, Sunday school and the Boys’ Brigade.” Other examples included youth work, over two-thirds of which was faith-based, senior citizens’ groups and helping people with alcohol or drug addictions.
She suggested that Northern Ireland had an even greater number of people involved in such work than Wales and a similar study would help the government to better appreciate their work. Several other MLAs highlighted the work of local churches and organisations such as St Vincent de Paul and the Salvation Army. Anna Lo called for non-Christian faiths to be included and Mervyn Storey added that smaller Christian churches feel “out of the loop” as the focus is usually on the “four main churches”.
In response, Margaret Ritchie announced her plans to set up a ‘faith forum’ with members drawn from churches and similar groups across the province. Officials would meet it quarterly to discuss policy and hear suggestions about how the DSD could help those groups.
While Ritchie acknowledged the Good Samaritan story was well-known, she said that similar principles were shared by “all major world faiths” and agreed to allocate a small number of places to non-Christians.
The motion was resolved by the Assembly but Ritchie was “unconvinced” about commissioning a study due to “scarce” financial resources.
She planned to give the forum a small annual budget, to be used for research, and several possible research proposals were being considered.
This forum will have a two-year term and its focus will be ‘social development’, which includes housing, welfare, regeneration, charity law, liquor licensing and gambling regulation.
McIlveen welcomed the move and commented afterwards: “These organisations have a long established history of such work in areas where statutory agencies have often been ineffective, particularly amongst the most deprived in our society, and they have built up relationships of trust over the years.”
The Evangelical Alliance, which had previously called for a forum, welcomed its formation as “hugely encouraging”. A spokeswoman commented: “This model of engagement should be replicated within other departments leading to a joined-up commitment from the whole Assembly to improve two-way communication.”
