The Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, the Rt Rev Ken Good, has taken the opportunity to comment on a number of key social issues facing our wider community, including alcohol and drug abuse, debt, obesity, HIV and AIDS.
In a wide ranging address to members of the Derry and Raphoe Diocesan Synod last Thursday, he highlighted the need for a greater sense of personal responsibility and for the setting of boundaries in our behaviour.
Bishop Good highlighted government figures revealing that £35 million has been spent in Northern Ireland on treating alcohol related illnesses in 24,000 adults over the past three years. Instances of drink-related liver disease have more than doubled over the past decade, and with the abuse of alcohol now taking root in a younger age group, those figures are likely to rise even further in the longer term.
He talked of a reluctance on the part of individuals to set themselves limits of reasonable and appropriate levels of alcohol consumption and a refusal on the part of those who produce, sell and advertise alcohol, as well as governments which benefit from tax revenue on high volume sales, to set more responsible boundaries on the financial gain they exact at such a high personal and social cost.
Bishop Good pointed out that globally we are losing the battle against AIDS. 40 million people worldwide and 70,000 in the UK now live with the virus. In the next five years there could be 60 million people who are HIV positive in the world. Last year, three times as many people were diagnosed with HIV than in 1997. In Britain, the young, heterosexual community has the fastest-growing number of new cases of the disease.
