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
Articles
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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.
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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.
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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, that
Articles
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Health
Does Northern Ireland support abortion?
3 November 2022
CLAIM: DUP MP Carla Lockhart claimed “Northern Ireland does not support abortion, it never has. It still doesn’t.”
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INACCURATE WITH CONSIDERATION
In recent years, several opinion polls have asked for NI’s views on abortion The public is broadly in favour of abortion rights when there areWe have published over 200 fact checks since 2016.
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