Northern Ireland is the hate capital of the western world, according to new research by the University of Ulster.

Not only does Northern Ireland have the highest proportion of bigots - just ahead of Greece - but the bigots are on average more bigoted than those in other countries.

The main target of the Ulster bigots are homosexuals, followed by immigrants or foreign workers.

Anna Lo, Alliance Party candidate for the Assembly, described the findings as "a very sad reflection of the state of society in Northern Ireland" .

The disturbing study was carried out by Vani Borooah, professor of applied economics at the University of Ulster, and John Mangan, professor of economics at the University of Queensland.

It is now due to be published in the prestigious economics journal Kyklos.

Nearly 32,000 people in 19 European countries as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US took part in the human beliefs and values survey.

They were asked: Would you like to have persons from this group as your neighbours?

The five groups were people of another race, immigrants or foreign workers, Muslims, Jews and homosexuals.

In Northern Ireland 44% of the 1,000 respondents did not want persons from at least one of the five groups as their neighbours. The province was closely followed by Greece (43%).

The lowest proportion of bigots was in Sweden (13%), Iceland (18%), Canada (22%) and Denmark (22%).

As regards each of the five groups, the percentage of respondents in Northern Ireland who would not like them as neighbours was homosexuals (35.9%), immigrants or foreign workers (18.9%), Muslims (16%), Jews (11.6%) and people of a different race (11.1%).

For the same groups, the average of all the countries surveyed was respectively 19.6%, 10.1%, 14.5%, 9.5% and 8.5%.

Homophobia was by far the main source of bigotry in most western countries: over 80% of bigoted persons in Northern Ireland and Canada and 75% of bigots in Austria, the US, Great Britain, Ireland and Italy would not want homosexuals as neighbours. Along with Greece, Northern Ireland was the most homophobic country in the western world.

The study also found that women are less likely to be bigoted than men and the young (15 to 29 years) and middle-aged (30 to 49) were less likely to be bigoted than those aged over 50.

Ms Lo said: "I am not totally surprised by the findings but this is a sad reflection of society in Northern Ireland.

"I would call on the political leaders, church leaders, school teachers, community activists and every individual in Northern Ireland to try and reflect on this and address it.

"We need a lot of leadership but we also need more education to change these attitudes. If we do not do this, we are doomed.

"If we are labelled with such a bad reputation how are we going to promote ourselves on the global stage?"