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
|
Economy
|
Health
Are UK child poverty rates over seven times higher than those in Scandinavia?
23 April 2024
CLAIM: Child poverty rates in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are between 2.4% and 3.6% – while in the UK they are 28.3%.
Rating
INACCURATE
On 26 March in a post on social media, BBC NI journalist Mandy McAuley made a claim about recent child poverty figures in the UKArticles
|
Economy
|
Health
Are unpaid carers worth hundreds of millions of pounds per year to Northern Ireland?
19 April 2024
CLAIM: Unpaid carers provide the equivalent of hundreds of millions of pounds of work every year, while the Department of Communities spends only 2% of its budget on Carer’s Allowance.
Rating
ACCURATE
On 28 February in a post on social media, Carers NI public affairs manager Craig Harrison claimed: “2%… That’s the amount of DfC’s budget spentArticles
|
Law
Does NI’s criminal justice system have the biggest backlog in the UK?
11 April 2024
CLAIM: Northern Ireland is the worst place in the UK for logjams in the justice system.
Rating
ACCURATE WITH CONSIDERATION
On 14 November, an article in the Belfast Telegraph claimed that: “Northern Ireland’s Crown Court is now backlogged until the autumn of 2024, with noWe have published over 200 fact checks since 2016.
Related and ancillary services
Training
Our one day training course “Keeping you Right in the Digital Age: An introduction to Fact-Checking” is very popular among journalists, political activists and PR Professionals
Learn moreThe fact check toolkit
We encourage everyone to engage in critical thinking and in this article we outline how everyone can check what they read, particularly online.
Learn moreWhy trust us?
FactCheckNI is Northern Ireland’s first and only dedicated fact checking service, operating with the following commitments