When Matt Baggott, the outgoing chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, commented on serious city centre rioting in Belfast in August 2013, prompted by disputes over flags and parades, he identified a number of issues facing those communities who feel left behind by the peace process.
High suicide rates, health inequalities and low educational achievement are present in communities where a sense of grievance is still keenly felt. Against a history of generational violence, the underlying living conditions for many of Northern Ireland's citizens – especially the young – work against the spread of wellbeing, stifling the development of responsible communities.
Paul Nolan, the author of the peace monitoring report for the Northern Ireland community relations council, has revealed that suicide rates in the region have gone from the lowest in the UK to the highest. While this can be explained in part by the economic recession and unemployment, the big increase has coincided with the general movement away from public violence. The age group most affected is 35-44 year olds: these people are adults who, having grown up during the worst years of the civil conflict, continue to carry trauma in their bodies and minds.
The collective trauma of Northern Ireland, and its manifestation in high levels of addiction, self-harm and suicide, was one theme under debate at the first session of a recent conference on wellbeing convened by the Carnegie UK Trust and the school of law at Queen's University Belfast.
Bringing together politicians, civil servants, local government, academia and civil society, the initiative is part of the trust's response to the influential commission on the measurement of economic performance and social progress and an ongoing global conversation about moving beyond the basic measure of GDP.
In Northern Ireland, where institutions of power and economic performance are facing a crisis of confidence, the Carnegie initiative has been welcomed as a "new conversation for new times".
From Ecuador to Bhutan, the wellbeing debate is now global, but it is inflected by the specific challenges of local communities and their political representatives. In Northern Ireland there is a palpable desire for a shift in the public discourse – a shift that will acknowledge and address the human suffering that remains an obstacle to a society that prioritises confidence, agency and empathy.
Talking about wellbeing is no substitute for the political leadership or tough decisions needed to deal with a legacy of conflict, but it is an essential conversation all the same. In fact, it invokes an oft-forgotten dimension of the Good Friday Agreement: creating space and time for a dialogue that is open to possibility, transcending and transforming our differences.
Northern Ireland no longer has a dominant or majority identity group. When public leaders discuss what wellbeing means to us, they start a conversation that embraces all our minorities.
How might we begin to recast our vision for a united community around notions of wellbeing? What price do we pay for continuing division and segregation, and for our troubled relationship with "otherness"? An enhanced sense of wellbeing in our communities might contribute to making them more confident, stable, inclusive, equal and settled, where citizens are more at ease with themselves and more able to value diversity.
Dr Peter Doran is a member of the Carnegie UK Trust secretariat for the Northern Ireland roundtable on wellbeing and a lecturer with the school of law at Queen's University Belfast. He writes in a personal capacity.
The policy hub is funded by EY. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
Join the Public Leaders Network for more comment, analysis and job opportunities, direct to your inbox. Follow us on twitter via @Guardianpublic.
