State Papers: Unionist minister objected to statisticians saying ‘Catholics twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants’

Dermott Nesbitt, a former UUP junior minister at the Office of First and Deputy First Minister (OFMDM) objected to the use of the phrase ‘twice as likely’ as he believed it suggested active discrimination against Catholics, according to newly-released state papers.

On July 18, 2000, Edgar F. Jardine, the then Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) wrote to Mr Nesbitt in response to concerns over the ‘terminology used to describe the differential unemployment rates of Protestants and Roman Catholics’.

The letter states: “In round figures the unemployment rate for Catholic males tends to be more than twice the rate for Protestant males, for females the Catholic rate is about 1.5 times higher and the overall ratio is around 2:1.

"In describing this difference NISRA has typically reported that ‘Catholics are twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants’.”

Mr. Jardine noted that Mr. Nesbitt’s concern was that ‘this wording may create the impression that there is inequality in terms of employment flows ie disadvantage (or lower success rate) in securing jobs’.

Mr. Nesbitt had referred to how Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy had, ‘in a recent debate, made the direct (causal) link between higher Catholic unemployment and discrimination’.

"Mr. Nesbitt believed that using the term ‘twice as likely’ inadvertently encouraged such an interpretation,” he wrote.

The NISRA boss responded: “By using the term ‘twice as likely’ we were simply trying to state that the unemployment rate of Catholics was twice the Protestant rate; we had not construed our terminology as inferring that Catholic and Protestant job applicants do not have the same chance of getting a job.”

Mr. Jardine adds that NISRA would have no objection to using alternative terminology as a point of principle but pointed out that ‘unwarranted conclusions’ could still be drawn.

“This would imply substituting ‘twice as likely’ by stating that ‘the Catholic unemployment rate is twice the Protestant rate’.

"However, as the Minister will be aware, the complexities and subtleties associated with fair employment statistics and [sic] not generally well understood and it is still possible that unwarranted conclusions will be drawn from the revised terminology.”