Belfast-based civil liberties group has criticised Northern Ireland direct rule ministers for specifically targeting social need in deprived Protestant areas when official reports, which the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) had seen, "objectively" illustrated that Catholics were still worse off than Protestants.
The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) cited a number of detailed studies for its argument that Protestants generally suffered less disadvantage than Catholics, particularly in terms of jobs, housing and financial aid. It also suggested that the British government was ignoring or suppressing this information.
The 208-page CAJ report, Equality in Northern Ireland - the Rhetoric and the Reality, said there was "clear evidence" the view that disadvantaged Catholic areas were better able to cope than similar Protestant areas was a "myth". Deprivation in Protestant and Catholics areas must be tackled equally, it said.
In recent years, several unionist politicians and loyalist representatives have contended that disadvantaged Protestants suffer greater discrimination than disadvantaged Catholics when it comes to redressing inequality and deprivation.
Two years ago, the then minister for social development in the North, John Spellar, now replaced by David Hanson, established the Taskforce to Address the Needs of Protestant Working Class Communities. The NIO also opened up a controversial and well-publicised channel of communication with leading loyalists, including paramilitaries, around this period. As well as addressing social need, this was interpreted as part of British government policy to try to wean loyalists away from paramilitarism.
The taskforce project was "misconceived", according to the CAJ report.
"Its creation implies that Catholic disadvantage either does not exist or has been adequately addressed and is a historical problem. It also implies that government shares the view of those Protestants who claim that Catholics have disproportionately benefited from government measures to date, and that past injustices must now be remedied," it stated.
Quoting a report commissioned by the department for social development, it said Catholics were more likely than Protestants to live in areas with weak infrastructure.
"While Catholics make up 57 per cent of the population of these weak community infrastructure areas, they make up only 44 per cent of the total population," it said.
