Parades Commission defends appointment of mediators for Drumcree dispute

The Parades Commission has defended its appointment of a mediation organisation in relation to the Drumcree parading dispute.

There has been criticism of how the commission has handled the issue from the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, who said they had rejected the mediator on the basis they were not neutral.

The route the Orange Order hopes to take - including the mainly-nationalist Garvaghy Road - has been published on the Parades Commission website.

In a statement issued on Friday, the commission said it had "clarified" that TIDES Mediation NI has a "network of qualified mediators and ensures that, in each mediation, those appointed are reflective of all the communities involved".

Breandán Mac Cionnaith, a spokesperson for the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition, said: "The organisation appointed had actually been employed to do mediation work on behalf of the Orange Order."

TIDES Mediation NI has a list of clients on their website, which includes the Orange Order, the Gaelic Athletic Association, and the United Nations.

The spokesperson for the organisation, which has its headquarters in south Belfast, said TIDES Mediation NI works with organisations that "have worked with a wide range of individuals, groups, businesses and statutory providers through our training, mediation and facilitation".

They added that "if any party is not comfortable with the mediators that has to be respected and understood".

On Thursday, Portadown Orange District said on social media that the Parades Commission had appointed a surprise mediation facilitator for the dispute.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had urged the Irish government not to intervene in the dispute after calls for the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) to meet residents.

Sinn Féin MLA John O'Dowd said he was concerned there had been no visible engagement from the Irish government on the issue.

On Friday, Micheál Martin said he will "keep under review" calls for him to meet Garvaghy Road residents.

Speaking in Manchester after meeting the prime minister, the taoiseach said he had received a letter asking him to consider the request.

"Our officials have been engaged, there's a process there that I'm conscious of."

Mac Cionnaith, from the resident's group, had also said that signatures are being collected from households from around the area in support of preventing the parade.

He said the signatures will be provided to the Parades Commission as evidence that the "vast majority of people" want the march re-routed.

"The commission, and those above them in government, must take good notice of this."

The taoiseach has received correspondence from the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition seeking to meet Irish government officials.

Officials from the Irish government have since been in contact with the residents' group and will continue to monitor the situation.

Portadown District said it had confirmed their readiness to commence the mediation process as a matter of urgency without any preconditions.

DUP Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart said her party welcomes the idea of mediation.

"It is something that we have been asking for, for many years, and we welcome that the Orange Order are ready and willing to talk anywhere, any place and to anyone to get a resolution to this long running sore and this denial of rights over the past 28 years."

Speaking to the Nolan Show, Lockhart said: "We want a re-balancing of rights, the Orange Order have put forward a very reasonable, proportionate, they have stretched themselves about what they have put on the table, and it is now about re-balancing rights."

She added it is "utterly constitutionally inappropriate for the Irish prime minister to be anywhere near this issue, and I trust that he will see that he is being weaponised in this invitation".

"I have reached out to our Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who has responsibility overall for parading in Northern Ireland, to remind the Irish government that they have absolutely no business in regulating parades in Northern Ireland."

On Thursday evening Garvaghy Road residents met to discuss the Orange Order's application to parade down the road.

Speaking after the meeting, O'Dowd said "the reality is there is no requirement for an Orange Order march down the Garvaghy Road".

"There is no support for an Orange Order march through this community on a return parade," he said.

O'Dowd called Westminster, and particularly the Irish government, to "listen to this community".

"There is a responsibility on the Irish government to stand up for the rights of these citizens."

The Sinn Féin MLA added that many in the unionist community are "aghast" at the Orange Order's proposal.