Residents lodge fresh legal bid to stop Drumcree march

Lawyers for the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition have issued a fresh legal bid to try to prevent the controversial Drumcree march from going ahead.

Members of the Orange Order are still waiting to begin their permitted parade, which was due to take place on Sunday, and walk down the mainly-nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown.

Protesters remain along the Garvaghy Road and Orangemen remain at Drumcree church as the stalemate continues.

Talks to try to resolve the issue have been taking place on Tuesday.

It is the latest challenge to the march, which was given the go ahead after three separate legal hearings over the course of 13 hours late on Saturday and into the early hours of Sunday morning.

The hearing is listed to take place on Friday.

The fresh application to the Court of Appeal in Belfast argues that the Parades Commission had "materially misdirected itself" on the police assessment of the potential for disorder and had not given an "accurate representation of the evidence received from PSNI" in its decision.

Both the Orange Order and members of the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition met NI Secretary Sir Chris Bryant at Hillsborough Castle again on Tuesday.

Speaking on his way into talks with Sir Chris on Tuesday, Breandán Mac Cionnaith, from the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, said "reroute the sectarian parade, that's it".

"No parade is no parade, that's it," Mac Cionnaith said.

"That's what our community wants. That's what almost 4,000 people living in our community want and we gave that evidence to the Parades Commission last week in a signed petition."

Speaking after a separate meeting with the secretary of state, Portadown District Master Nigel Dawson said the talks had been "positive and constructive".

Earlier, Orange Order Deputy District Master Alistair Power said he had told police they were ready to march down the Garvaghy Road whenever it was safe to do so.

Power said the "position of the district remains the same" and that the Parade Commission's determination is still "a live document", to bring the parade "down its traditional route of via the Garvaghy Road to complete its parade in Carleton Street".

About 30 to 50 protesters have been sitting roadside on a grass verge on the Garvaghy Road throughout most of Tuesday, but traffic has flowed freely.

A gazebo has been set up, with tea, coffee and snacks available and many of the residents and supporters have deck chairs.

A small group of about 10 people gathered at Drumcree church on Tuesday morning.

A low-key police presence remains in place 100m from the church, with just one Land Rover there.

Police said a "significant public safety operation" remained in place on the Garvaghy Road.

Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin said he was in favour of an independent mediator to attempt to reach a solution.

"I understand fully that feelings are very high but this is a time for us all to be calm and to be careful in what we say and what we do," Martin told the Dáil (lower house of Irish parliament).

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and vice president Michelle O'Neill met the taoiseach and Tánaiste (Irish deputy prime minister) Simon Harris in Dublin on Tuesday.

McDonald said she would ask the Irish government to "intervene directly" in what she referred to as a "sectarian march".

"You couldn't overstate the kind of trauma that has now been revisited on the community. Community life has been completely disrupted. People's family lives have been completely disrupted," McDonald said.

When asked by a reporter if she had been contacted by police about her attendance at the protest and whether she expects to be arrested, O'Neill responded: "No, I have not and no."

Speaking after meeting Martin and Harris, O'Neill said the Northern Ireland secretary should exercise his power to revoke permission for the parade immediately.

"This is a community that feels under siege, this is a community that feels fear, intimidation, sectarianism on a day-to-day basis for the last five days. This needs to stop for this community and we need to see an urgent intervention," O'Neill said.

"The best intervention is this parade is taken off the table," she said.

"The secretary of state has those powers. We have asked the taoiseach and the tánaiste to intervene, to put it directly to the British prime minister, because what we need to do is for them to step in to stop this madness happening on the Garvaghy Road right now."

The Irish Foreign Minister, Helen McEntee, is to meet Sir Chris Bryant on Tuesday evening.

On Sunday, protesters on the Garvaghy Road were joined by members of Sinn Féin, including O'Neill, and the Social Democratic Labour Party.

The Democratic Unionist Party subsequently accused O'Neill of acting unlawfully as notice of the protest had not been lodged.

Sir Chris said "nobody should be attending an unlawful protest", but he added it was not his job "to decide whether somebody has or hasn't broken the law".

Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson has said a "dedicated enquiry team" had been established, which was currently reviewing evidence gathered and "anyone who has broken the law will be investigated".

The Portadown District of the Orange Order also lodged a complaint with the chief constable in relation to O'Neill and McDonald's attendance.

In a statement on Tuesday, the County Grand Orange Lodge of Belfast said its position was clear.

"There is a lawful Parades Commission determination in place. This has been upheld by the courts," it said.

"It is now for the PSNI to uphold the rule of law and facilitate the completion of the return home."

The Deputy First Minister, the DUP's Emma Little-Pengelly, criticised O'Neill for travelling to Dublin instead of attending the Northern Ireland Assembly on Tuesday afternoon and rejected suggestions her party was raising tensions.

Little-Pengelly argued it was O'Neill who was "on the Garvaghy Road at the weekend chanting, encouraging people to break the law".

"She needs to come to this house and answer questions and subject herself to that scrutiny," she added.

The Drumcree parade, which in the 1990s sparked some of the most serious disorder in Northern Ireland's history, was due to go ahead for the first time in almost 30 years after a series of legal challenges.

Since 1998, the Orange Order had been banned from completing its Drumcree march - and until this year had been repeatedly refused permission to finish the route by the Parades Commission, which was set up to adjudicate disputes.

The Orange Order is a Protestant pro-British organisation, while the area where it wants to walk - specifically along the Garvaghy Road - is largely Catholic and predominantly inhabited by pro-Irish nationalists.

The Orange Order, the most prominent of the loyal orders associated with Protestants in Northern Ireland, holds thousands of parades every year and the vast majority pass off without incident.

However, many Catholics see the marches as sectarian and object to them passing through, or close to, Catholic or nationalist areas.

The Garvaghy Road had been part of the Drumcree route, but by the mid 1990s nationalist residents protested against the parade. The row sparked some of the most serious public disorder in Northern Ireland's history and was linked to several murders.

The row reemerged after a court case in which a ruling by the Parades Commission - the organisation formed during the Drumcree dispute to decide on contentious marches during Northern Ireland's parading season - was overturned.

On Friday, following 28 years of unsuccessful applications, the commission decided the march could go ahead with restrictions in place.

Rather than start at 13:00 on Sunday as intended, the commission said it could begin no later than 08:00 and with 35 participants rather than the 60 the Orange Order requested.

However that decision was challenged in several Belfast courts on Saturday, before finally being given the go ahead just hours before it was due to take place.

The Drumcree dispute was one of Northern Ireland's most serious parading disputes during the 1990s, when stand-offs over attempts by the Orange Order to march along the Garvaghy Road were accompanied by riots, roadblocks and killings.

When the Orange Order was prevented by police from walking down the route in July 1995, there was a tense stand-off. It was the same for the next three years.

Violence related to the dispute resulted in riots, roadblocks and murders across Northern Ireland.

In 1998, the newly-established Parades Commission ruled that the Orange Order should not march down the road - a decision upheld until Friday.