Debate contribution: Poverty: North Down

Debate contribution by Ms Connie Egan on 9 December 2025.

MLA

Ms Connie Egan

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

9 December 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Poverty: North Down

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5296604

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I secured this debate on poverty in North Down for many reasons. At its core, the debate is on behalf of all those across our constituency who are struggling to make ends meet and to deal with the cost of living and of the organisations that are fighting for funding to support them. It is incredibly timely: this is the last item to be discussed in the Chamber before Christmas, which is a time when so many feel pressure financially, whether it be because of presents for the kids or the increasing use of fuel to keep homes warm and families healthy.

To set the tone from the outset, I have brought the matter to the House not to point fingers and propel blame but to have a frank and constructive conversation about the vast income inequality and areas of deprivation across the place that I represent. I thank every Member who has made the time to come to the Chamber and contribute to the debate, including the Minister. Poverty across our region continues to be an issue of serious concern. It feels right to begin the debate by putting some numbers to it. Although I am here to raise issues relevant to my constituency, we all know that poverty is a problem across Northern Ireland. It is not about pitting communities or constituencies against each other; it is about shining a light on an issue that persists in our area and the grassroots work that is being done on the ground to mitigate it. Approximately 330,000 people, including approximately 24% of all children, in Northern Ireland are in relative poverty after housing costs. That is about 17% of our total population. Up to 40% of our population are thought to have been in fuel poverty at some point over the past few years. Almost half of all workers have experienced low pay in one of the past five years. It is estimated that one in five households in Northern Ireland has faced food insecurity in the past 12 months. Before the debate, I spoke with many individuals across North Down, including those who are struggling and those who provide direct support to the people who need it most. In each of those conversations, I heard the repeated message that high levels of income and wealth in North Down continue to overshadow the struggle and deprivation of many people. Perhaps that message is best put in simple terms, as Trussell did in a briefing that was sent to all MLAs in advance of today's debate: poverty in our borough is hidden, and the stigma of getting help is rising. Our constituency is sometimes called "the gold coast", and it is seen as being a wealthy area. That perception has contributed to the stigma, making those who are struggling across the community feel a lot of shame because their finances or living costs are not more manageable. I am here today to make it clear that that is not their fault; it is the fault of the system that has let them down. It is our local community and voluntary sector organisations that deal with individuals directly and provide essential support. Charities such as the Society of St Vincent de Paul or Christians Against Poverty operate locally, Bangor Foodbank and Community Support runs a food bank and a baby bank, Kilcooley Women's Centre's runs a social supermarket, and there are too many churches and local community groups to mention: they all see at first hand the level of need in their local communities and areas. They address that need directly and offer support. Those are the groups and the people doing the work on the ground. Together, between the councils, Departments, Westminster counterparts and grassroots action, we can deliver better. We can deliver a transformational anti-poverty strategy that acts to the benefit of all across Northern Ireland. I would like to see clear, ambitious targets. The strategy should listen to the expertise of those with lived experience, and to organisations providing practical support in communities. We have really good examples of collaboration and co-design in Executive strategies. I hope that we will also see that in the finalised anti-poverty strategy. One of the items that I would like to raise with the Minister is the need for updated information on poverty at a small area level. That is vital to unpick the stigma that is felt so strongly across North Down and to track the tangibility of the outcomes of interventions. For example, I can see that, in 2017 — the last time that that data was disaggregated so — Bangor Central, the district electoral area (DEA) where my office sits, was ranked amongst the 100 wards with the most income deprivation in Northern Ireland. The same goes for the areas of Conlig and Loughview in Holywood, where 23·9% of the working population was employment deprived. However, all that was eight years ago, pre pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. When preparing for the debate, I found that there is very little hard, up-to-date data available on the levels of poverty and deprivation in specific areas of constituencies rather than in local government districts as a whole. As I have said, there is a broad spectrum of wealth in North Down and a number of high earners in the area, but that is simply not the case for everyone. Income inequalities can hide the struggle of those in areas across the constituency. As one community worker put it to me:

"One of the biggest concerns that we see locally is the number of working families who are doing everything right, earning what they can, yet still cannot make ends meet, and who do not qualify for the types of support that might keep them afloat. These households are slipping through the gaps, and that reality is too often hidden because our borough is perceived as affluent".

They see, at first hand, how that misconception contributes to a disproportionate lack of investment. I ask the Minister to address the need for solid data on those areas. We do have a rather helpful collection of data from Bangor's 2022 neighbourhood renewal profile. For anyone who is not familiar with that project, its focus was on supporting areas that fell into the 10% most deprived in Northern Ireland. Clandeboye and Dufferin in North Down fell into that category, based on the 2017 baseline data, with 44% of children in poverty; 31% of the working-age population employment deprived; and 21% of people living in households whose equalised income was below 60% of Northern Ireland's median. I want to pay particular attention to the doubling in the number of drug-related deaths between 2005-09 and 2017-2021, and the 37% increase between 2011-15 and 2017-2021 in the number of deaths from suicide and undetermined intent, in the Bangor neighbourhood renewal area. Poverty and struggles with the cost of living have clear connections with people's health, both physical and mental. Poverty does not happen in isolation; there are so many factors. The inability to work due to long waiting lists or health inequalities, mental health pressures, housing insecurity and the rising cost of living are all compounding one another and pushing people to breaking point. That gives a direct reminder of the need for cross-departmental working on anti-poverty measures, as stated in our Programme for Government. I will highlight two anonymised, real-life stories of my constituents, who, plainly put, are struggling not just with the cost of living but with the cost of surviving. A woman knocked on the door of a local community centre one morning and asked whether she could borrow a loaf of bread for her children's breakfast. When she came in for help, she admitted that her children had missed school as she did not have enough electric to wash and dry their uniforms and was rationing her washing powder. Another parent experienced extreme malnutrition because they chose to put food on the table for their child and heat the home instead of filling their own plate. I know that those are not isolated incidents and that there are many such heartbreaking stories across Northern Ireland. In North Down, local community organisations always step in and address the need, connecting those who need support to food banks or social supermarkets or providing advice or expertise to recalculate social welfare support. However, the same organisations find themselves struggling and competing for impactful funding, in part due to limiting criteria set by the council and Departments. We need to move beyond that and short-term sticking plasters and focus on long-term, collaborative solutions. I would really welcome the Minister's telling us what he is doing about that in preparation for the multi-year Budget.

For example, Ards and North Down Borough Council's community development fund makes no assessment of applicants' reserves, unrestricted income or financial vulnerability. Instead, allocations are based on a 0 to 5 score for postcode deprivation, when we know that, across the board, multiple deprivation statistics are outdated. Our area's needs must be better understood in order to ensure genuine equity so that all communities can thrive equally. Another issue that is often raised with me is the missed opportunities for regional funding, as North Down is often seen and counted as being part of the greater Belfast area, which feeds into geographic inequality and a postcode lottery of support. For example, in the BT19 postcode area, there are some of the most expensive properties in the constituency — maybe even in Northern Ireland — but there is also one of Northern Ireland's three largest housing estates. The visibility of that wealth in close proximity to those who are living in significant poverty hides the deprivation that needs to be tackled. A practical way to address that, which communities welcomed, was the hardship fund that DFC issued and that was distributed through councils to the front-line communities that needed it. Minister, I have raised that fund with you previously, so if progress has been made on its reintroduction or if your Department is doing any work to bring forward similar schemes, we would all appreciate an update. Ultimately, we need the council and DFC to work with our community and voluntary sector partners to ensure that funding is distributed on the basis of need and is proportionate to the population of the local area. It is really unfortunate that many of the community groups to which I speak cite councils and Departments as being the most difficult partners to work with. They cite the length of application forms for relatively small grants; the amount of paperwork and monitoring that are involved; and the timescales in which funding is received competing with the need to spend it by the end of a financial year. I do not think that that is a situation that any of us want to see or be in. We need all of us to work together and our councils and Departments to support our community partners. No one type of person experiences poverty. I really hope to see that reflected in the anti-poverty strategy. There are those who cannot work for a variety of reasons, including caring responsibilities and accessibility needs, and there are those who can. In fact, a significant majority of people who are in poverty, which is 60% of such adults, live in households with someone who works, but the work-first approach does not adequately combat poverty when other significant barriers, such as poor health, unaffordable childcare and housing, are not being addressed. I thank all who spoke to me in anticipation of today's debate. I hope that you feel that it reflects what you had to say. Thank you for the work that you do and the work that keeps so many people in our constituency surviving and living. I look forward to hearing all the other contributions, and I will listen with an eagerness to collaborate and deliver positive change together for all our communities.

2,001 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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