Hearts and Minds survey: Part two

The BBC Northern Ireland Hearts and Minds public attitudes survey was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers on 10 and 11 September and completed before the terrorist attacks in the US. The pollsters interviewed 1,178 people in the 18 Westminster constituencies the 26 district council areas.

The poll is fully representative of Northern Ireland's adult population in terms of age, gender, religion, geography and social class.

	Click on the links below for the main results
	Future of the Agreement
	Paramilitary ceasefires
	Northern Ireland's constitutional future
	Results in details

Q.1 Do you think that the ceasefires of the following organisations are still intact?

THE IRA CEASEFIRE:

THE UVF CEASEFIRE:

THE UDA/UFF CEASEFIRE:

THE LVF CEASEFIRE:

In all cases, there is a majority of opinion when all groups are taken together that none of the main paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland are observing their proclaimed ceasefires. In regard to the IRA, 86.4% of unionists believe it is not on ceasefire compared to only a third of nationalists surveyed.

In regard to the UDA/UFF, 79.7% of unionists believe it is not on ceasefire compared to 89.9% of nationalists surveyed.

Q.2 Do you think that the war is over?

TOTAL AMONG ALL SURVEYED:

In all cases, there is a majority of opinion that the "war" is not over - but there are differences of opinion among unionist and nationalists surveyed.

Only 11.8% of unionists said that they believed the war was over. But 32.6% of nationalists said that they believed it was.

Q.3 Tracking opinion - Do you think the war is over? (Surveyed 1998 - 2001)

UNIONIST OPINION:

NATIONALIST OPINION:

There has been a slump in belief among both communities that the "war" is over. The most noticeable jump comes in the two surveys conducted in May 2000. The second of these was conducted after the IRA issued a statement saying that it was prepared to initiate a process to put arms "completely and verifiably beyond use". Following this statement, there was a shift among unionists indicating that more believed that the "war" was over. There was an ever larger shift among nationalist voters - 17 percentage points.

However the deadlock of 2001 appears to have taken its toll with two thirds of unionists who believed the war is over having changed their mind.

	Click on the links below for the main results
	Future of the Agreement
	Paramilitary ceasefires
	Northern Ireland's constitutional future
	Results in details