SF in ‘no parade’ warning to Order
THE Orange Order will have to accept that some of its parades will not take place, a republican has said.
John O’Dowd, one of the Sinn Fein representatives on the new parades working group — which began its work on Tuesday — accepts that there will be compromise by republicans.
But he warns that the Loyal Orders will also have to make compromises: “What we have agreed is a renewed focus by everyone to facilitate resolution – the key in this will be dialogue and persuasion.
“But in some cases the reality is that a resolution to a particular parading dispute will be no parade.”
Meanwhile, the DUP’s Nelson McCausland, who also sits on the group, urged unionists and especially members of the Loyal Orders to respond positively to the group’s attempts to replace the Parades Commission with something better.
“This opportunity was hard-fought-for and it must not be squandered,” he says.
However, the SDLP and UUP accused the DUP and Sinn Fein of a “carve-up” for excluding them from the parades working group.
A senior Orange source said that while it had never accepted the Parades Commission’s legitimacy, if it does sign up to a new parades adjudication system it would have to accept that panel’s decisions — even if it did not agree with them.
