More than double the amount of Protestants believe asylum seekers should not be allowed to stay in Nirthern Ireland compared to Catholics, new figures show.
The research from Stormont’s Executive Office released on Thursday shows that 39% of people from ‘Protestant or other Christian religions’ disagree or strongly disagree that asylum seekers should be allowed to stay in the north.
The corresponding figure for those from the Catholic faith was just 16%.
The report analyses data from the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey, examining public attitudes to refugees and asylum seekers.
The total figure showed for the first time since 2018, less than half of those surveyed agree with asylum seekers staying in the north.
The north has faced its third consecutive summer of racially motivated riots, with several migrant families burnt from their homes in the disorder which followed the stabbing of Stephen Ogilvie in north Belfast.
Hadi Alodid, 30, has been charged with attempted murder after the incident in June.
The majority of the racially motivated disorder took place in unionist areas of Belfast.
The data released by TEO, led by the First and Deputy First Minister, shows a disparity in attitudes towards asylum seekers between the two largest religious communities in the north.
58% of those who identify as Catholic say they agree or strongly agree with allowing asylum seekers to stay in the north, while 33% of those who identify as a Protestant say the same. 21% of Catholics and 23% of Protestants say they “neither agree nor disagree”.
The research also showed a disparity between the two faiths when it came to whether they believed they had a “duty to provide protection to refugees who are escaping persecution in their own country”.
Just 16% of Catholics in the north disagreed with that statement, while 33% of Protestants disagreed. 66% of Catholics agreed, while 44% of Protestants were in agreement with it.