Reform parades body, says Paisley

Root-and-branch reform of the Parades Commission has been demanded by the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley.

Root-and-branch reform of the Parades Commission has been demanded by the DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley.

He was speaking after a meeting with Northern Secretary Peter Hain, who also hosted meetings with the Ulster Unionists and the Alliance Party.

Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey urged Mr Hain to go and see for himself the reality of life in loyalist areas, and to get a "real taste" of the people who live there.

Dr Paisley, leading a delegation of DUP MPs, called on Mr Hain to come up with a "complete alternative" to the Parades Commission, which, he said, had "failed the country".

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He also called for financial aid packages to be directed to those loyalist communities that have been severely disrupted by the nightly street violence since the rerouted Whiterock Orange parade last weekend.

The DUP also called for an end to the violence, saying the rioters only damaged the very communities they came from.

Sir Reg accused the British government of apparently choreographing concessions which included the release of Sean Kelly, which was followed by the release of July's IRA statement in which the organisation called off its campaign.

"There is an all-too-obvious choreography taking shape which began with the IRA statement and the release of Sean Kelly."

Mr Hain should get out and meet the "communities which inexcusably erupted in violence at the weekend", he added. "Mr Hain should have engaged directly with these communities at an earlier stage," said Sir Reg.

David Ford, the Alliance leader, rejected the Orange Order's denial of responsibility for any violence at the weekend.

"The Alliance Party will put the blame where it lies, with the paramilitaries and the Orange Order, not with those who enforce the law and deserve support from everybody."