FactCheckNI. Northern Ireland’s first dedicated fact checking service
We are a team of independent fact checkers who identify important public statements relevant to Northern Ireland, interrogate the best available evidence, and publish fact check articles to improve the quality of public debate.
Latest fact checks
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Economy
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Topics
Did the GDP gap between NI and Britain’s wealthiest regions grow by almost 44% between 2000 and 2014?
5 December 2022
CLAIM: Between 2000 and 2014, the gap in GDP per capita between NI and the three wealthiest regions of GB increased by 44%.
Rating
INACCURATE WITH CONSIDERATION
Ireland’s Future used inappropriate data to reach its conclusion By coincidence, analysis of official GDP data leads to results which are similar but not the
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Economy
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Education
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Topics
Do far more young people in Northern Ireland have no qualifications, compared with peers in England?
23 November 2022
CLAIM: Based on figures from 2015, an average of 6.3% of young people across the nine regions of England had no qualifications - compared with 10.4% of those in NI.
Rating
ACCURATE WITH CONSIDERATION
This statistic is accurate, based on analysis from a recent research paper. However, its use lacks some context – in particular, about NI’s “brain drain”.
Articles
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Elections
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Peace
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Topics
Has the Executive been in a state of collapse for 40% of its existence?
8 November 2022
CLAIM: There have been several recent claims that, since it was first established a year and a half after the Good Friday Agreement, Northern Ireland’s devolved institutions have not been functioning for 40% of the time.
Rating
ACCURATE
FactCheckNI has counted the days of existence and days of dysfunction. The Executive has been utterly collapsed for around 37.8% of that time. However, thatWe have published over 200 fact checks since 2016.
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