Leaders of Ireland's five main churches have called on the British government to commit to support a return to power-sharing at Stormont by providing funding needed to tackle growing budgetary pressures.
They also urged the main political parties to act for the common good because of the "urgent need" to restore devolution and said there is a rising sense of hopelessness and despair in the community.
The church leaders met the leaders of the five main parties in a series of separate meetings in Belfast last week.
A statement by the Church of Ireland, the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, and Irish Council of Churches described the meetings as "both positive and constructive."
"During the meetings we highlighted the feedback coming to us from communities across Northern Ireland regarding the seriousness of the current situation, indicating the real and sustained financial hardship that is being experienced by many people, combined with the everyday reality that many of the normal services that society depends upon were close to breaking point," they said.
"We also indicated to the party leaders that this was leading to a rising sense of despair, and even hopelessness throughout the community, linked to a growing anger at the current poor state of governance."
The statement said the restoration of good governance in Northern Ireland was important in re-establishing hope and a vision for the future.
The one thing the leaders of the five main political parties have agreed on in recent months in discussions with the Northern Ireland civil service is the need for substantial additional funding to deal with growing budgetary pressures.
The public sector north of the border is in a mess.
Hospital waiting lists are much longer than in the Republic or Britain, schools are also under resourced and the PSNI is facing a huge shortfall in its funding as well as a fall in officer numbers.
The church leaders' statement said it was noted during their meetings "that Northern Ireland on the whole was being underfunded by the UK government."
They called on all political parties in Northern Ireland "to have as a priority acting for the common good and in so doing genuinely to take account of the needs, concerns and aspirations of 'the other'."
Their statement added: "This will mean reaching accommodations for the common good, which will balance the alleviation of their own concerns with the urgent need for the restoration of good governance in Northern Ireland."
They also called on the UK government to "urgently to take all necessary steps to facilitate the restoration of good governance", including "providing the funding necessary to meet immediate budgetary pressures, while putting in place a more equitable needs-based funding model going into the future."
The statement also called for undertakings to be given that necessary additional ‘transformation funding’ will be available in response to an agreed Northern Ireland Executive plan for the transformation of public services.
The appeal comes as the most senior official in the Department of Finance at Stormont warned of a likely overspend of £450m (€516m) this year.
The figure is based on the assumption that there will be no pay rises across public services.
If there were to be pay rises similar to other parts of the UK, which public sector unions are lobbying for, the overspend could exceed £1bn (€1.15bn).
The members of the Church Leaders’ Group (Ireland) attending the meetings were:
Archbishop John McDowell, Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Eamon Martin, Roman Catholic Primate, (Bishop Dónal McKeown represented Archbishop Eamon at some of the meetings), Rt Rev Dr Sam Mawhinney, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI), Rev David Turtle, President of the Methodist Church in Ireland (MCI) and Bishop Andrew Forster, President of the Irish Council of Churches, along with the Joint Secretaries to Church Leaders Group (Ireland) Rev Trevor Gribben, PCI General Secretary and Rev Dr Heather Morris, MCI General Secretary.
