Search the record

Orange Order marching down the road they call home. Now, their fears are being realised. The grant of permission last Friday by the Parades Commission has reopened seriously deep wounds. We can all be clear that none of this about infringing on anyone’s traditions. More than … must be taken to restore trust and calm, as the SDLP has said. Has the Taoiseach asked the PSNI why it told the Parades Commission that the Drumcree parade could safely take place, as it clearly could not? Will he use all diplomatic channels to ensure that

Scottish police officers last Monday or Tuesday week to come to the Garvaghy Road when, at the same time, he was telling the Parades Commission there would not be a public order consequence if the Orange Order march went down the Garvaghy Road? That suggests that Jon Boutcher … misled the Parades Commission, with the consequences we are now facing of a stand-off. The Taoiseach needs to stand up against supremacism and an ideology that is about trying to drag the North back to violent conflict and he should speak up against the genocidal horror

return to the divisions of the past. I am aware of the decision of the High Court in Northern Ireland, of the Parades Commission ruling on the Drumcree march application and of the review announced by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It is important to recall … based on procedural grounds and is not an approval for the parade to take place. I understand Portadown lodge has now notified the Parades Commission of its intention to hold a march passing through the Garvaghy Road on 27 September. I received a letter this morning from

views on the decision. I am not going to attempt to take the House through that or indeed through whatever rationale the Parades Commission itself has given. We need to be careful of placing responsibility on the PSNI, in terms of that decision. I think the PSNI will … supporting the PSNI on that objective and avoiding any action that would precipitate injury or harm to people. I make that point. The Parades Commission has made its decision. I am clear that I find it difficult to comprehend. I believe that it was the wrong decision. From

what has transpired over the last number of days in Northern Ireland, particularly Drumcree, and the parade, or the decision by the Parades Commission in respect of a parade down the Garvaghy Road. We in the Government, along with everyone in the House, are deeply concerned with what

Taoiseach has described the decision of the Parades Commission to permit an Orange Order parade along the Garvaghy Road as "incomprehensible and wrong", and he is right in that. For 28 years there has been no parade on that route and most right-thinking people anticipated that would

this is now so grim. I agree with and welcome the Taoiseach's strongly worded views on the decision of the Parades Commission. We all share his view that it was an unacceptable and incomprehensible decision. Of course, the most important thing now is to ensure that nobody … part of the architecture of the Good Friday Agreement? The power of the Secretary of State to prohibit a parade without any veto from the PSNI or the commission is there in the 1998 legislation. There can be an enabling consultation but no right of veto. The Secretary

Good Friday Agreement. Members of this House will have seen the situation that has arisen in Drumcree in recent days following a Parades Commission determination in relation to the routing of an Orange Order parade to include the Garvaghy Road. The Government is very concerned about the situation

between various groups and so on. Those talks will continue today. We have made very clear our view on the position of the Parades Commission. We do not agree with that decision, which is incomprehensible. However, we must now focus on a resolution, and talks are ongoing

person would be injured as a result of what transpired over the last number of days from the decisions made by the Parades Commission onwards. That should be acknowledged. The Deputy talks about supremacy. If you speak to the victims of 30 years of violence, what happened

fear, is there such determination to reopen this dispute and override the clearly expressed wishes of the community? It defies belief that the Parades Commission could conclude that this march should return after 28 years. The Taoiseach correctly described that decision as "incomprehensible and wrong". I agree

Parades Commission that shot this through has lost credibility. We need to discuss it here

There are two things. As the Deputy knows, the Parades Commission is independent so the Irish Government does not have influence over it in that sense

courts are independent so they have reached various adjudications. I have made my comments on the original decision of the Parades Commission. The Minister for foreign affairs has been in regular contact with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Not everybody sees

throughout the night while the rain came down who held the line against sectarianism. It was them and not the institutions, not the Parades Commission, which incredibly said that this sectarian, triumphalist march connected with murder should be allowed to proceed, and not the courts that upheld that

welcome the fact that last Sunday the Taoiseach described the determination by the Parades Commission as "incomprehensible". I did not genuinely think we would be back watching scenes from Portadown, County Armagh on Sunday morning television which we, unfortunately, witnessed up to 1998. I am very glad

fragility of that and how things can reverse very quickly. To everybody, yes, we, in this House, find it incomprehensible how the Parades Commission took the decision it took. I have made that clear. What I am focused on now is how we try to collectively mediate

initiative, we stand ready to be of assistance in that regard. We agree with Deputy Smith in respect of the decision by the Parades Commission. Yes, the Irish centre in Manchester that the British Prime Minister and I visited was reflective of the historical connections between Ireland

this. The Government has a role to play, as does the British Government. There must be intervention. There is no way that the Parades Commission should ever have made that decision. It was totally wrong, and it was a wrong done to every person on this island

Parades Commission got this extraordinarily wrong. I am very clear on that. There has been good engagement with the Deputy's party leader and with Michelle O'Neill in her capacity as party vice president. To be fair to everybody, the Taoiseach is extraordinarily engaged on this issue

want to assure the Deputy that Government officials are monitoring the situation closely. Like him, I am mindful of the role of the Parades Commission. Again I very much welcome the residents to Dáil Éireann today. I am extremely conscious, as is the Government, of the pressure that

island as well. I need to be mindful in the position I occupy of the independence of the work and role of the Parades Commission and the need for it to be allowed to do its work. I assure the Deputy and the residents that Government officials here

want to raise again the urgent situation on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown. As the Minister will be aware, the Parades Commission is about to consider an Orange Order application to march down the Garvaghy Road this Sunday. For 28 years, this community has lived with relative peace