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A blog from the Northern Ireland Assembly Research and Information Service

Ray.Russell

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Carers in Northern Ireland: Some key statistics

This article is a revised and updated version of a post originally published in June 2017.

The perceived underfunding of social care was a significant political issue in the 2017 general election. It is easy to forget, however, that the ‘formal’ care sector of nursing and residential homes, plus allied services, is underpinned by a much larger ‘informal’ sector of family and friends of the person being cared for. In a related article, we examined the legislation and policy framework behind this sector. Here, we review the facts and figures relating to informal carers in Northern Ireland. A detailed paper on this topic was recently published by the Research and Information Service (RaISe).

Image of the word 'Care'
Image: Patient Care Technician via Creative Commons

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The Houses of Parliament, London (http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/estatehistory/) (Image by Chensiyuan: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_westminster_palace_panorama_2012_dusk.jpg under Creative Commons: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en)

General election 2017: A detailed look at the result in Northern Ireland

The Westminster general election of 8 June 2017 resulted in a ‘hung parliament’, with the Conservatives as the largest party but without an overall majority. The result was: Conservative (318), Labour (262), SNP (35), Liberal Democrats (12), DUP (10) and Others (13). The Labour vote surged by over 3.5 million (38%), from 9.347 million in 2015 to 12.878 million in 2017. The Conservatives received 42.4% of the vote, while the Labour share rose from 30.4% in 2015 to 40.0% in 2017, an increase of 9.6 percentage points. Locally, the two largest parties (DUP and Sinn Féin) dominated the election, mainly at the expense of the three smaller parties (UUP, SDLP and Alliance). This post reviews the general election of 2017 in Northern Ireland; it follows a recently published research paper on the election results.

A photograph showing the Houses of Parliament in London
Image by Chensiyuan, under Creative Commons

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An image of the Northern Ireland Assembly

Election 2016: An analysis of results and transfers

Yesterday, we published a post which examined the 2016 Assembly election results in terms of candidates and voter turnout. This post, the second in the Election 2016 series, will focus on the results of that poll. The article is based on a more detailed report on Election 2016 by the Research and Information Service, which can be viewed here.

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The Northern Ireland Assembly: 108 seats were contested during the election in May 2016

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A polling station (Image: Paul Albertella under Creative Commons)

Election 2016: Candidates and voter turnout

The fifth Assembly election since the return of devolution in 1998 took place on 5 May 2016. The DUP consolidated its position as the largest party in Northern Ireland with the return of its 38 Members, with the UUP and Alliance also ending up with the same number of seats as before. The nationalist parties, however, experienced reverses, with the loss of two seats by the SDLP and one by Sinn Féin. In this post, the first of two articles on Election 2016, the focus is on the candidates and voter turnout. Tomorrow, a second post will look at the results. These posts are largely based on a more detailed and comprehensive election report which can be viewed here.

A polling station (Image: Paul Albertella under Creative Commons)
A polling station (Image: Paul Albertella under Creative Commons)

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