Residents write to Northern Ireland parades group
Residents of two areas where contentious Orange parades take place, have written to the working party on parading issues.
The Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition in Portadown and the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community in Belfast have sent their views to the group.
The group is to report to the first and deputy first minister on Tuesday.
Spokesman Breandan MacCionnaith said they were worried the details of its findings might not be made public.
“This would be counter to any sense of openness, transparency and fairness regarding this process,” he said.
The residents said they were prepared to meet with the working party.
At the weekend Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness said that the days of Orange Order marches through nationalist areas of Northern Ireland have been “consigned to the past”.
He made the comments at a republican event held in Strabane to commemorate the death of three IRA men.
“The Orange Order has to sit up and take notice that the world is changing all around them,” Mr McGuinness said.
“(They must) recognise that the days of triumphalist Orange marches through areas where they are not wanted have to be consigned to the history books forever.”
The DUP and Sinn Fein had set up a six-strong group to review parading following the Hillsborough Agreement.
Speaking at a meeting of the Grand Lodge of Ireland in County Tyrone on Saturday, Orange Order Grand Master Robert Salters said the Order was concerned about new proposals drawn up by the working group.
Initially, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland and the Royal Black Institution welcomed the establishment of the working group as they believed it would pave the way for the abolition of the Parades Commission.
The remit of the six-strong DUP/Sinn Fein parades working group is to agree a framework for dealing with what is a particularly controversial issue in Northern Ireland.
Three Democratic Unionist and Sinn Fein members have been tasked with designing a new and improved framework to rule on controversial marches, including a focus on local solutions, mediation and adjudication.
Nationalist residents in mainly working-class areas such as north Belfast and Portadown in County Armagh oppose Orange Order processions in their areas because they view them as triumphalist.
Members of the loyal orders accuse residents of going out of their way to be offended and maintain it is their traditional right to demonstrate on the streets.
