The time has come for unionist leaders to support publicly the need for Portadown Orangemen to engage in direct dialogue with Garvaghy Road residents in order to resolve the Drumcree parade issue, said Ms Brid Rodgers.
Ms Rodgers, the SDLP spokeswoman on parades, told the Assembly that the failure to break the Drumcree deadlock must be addressed. "To enter into dialogue is not to give way on fundamental principles. It is to recognise that conflict cannot be resolved any other way," she added.
Ms Rodgers noted that yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the banned civil rights march in Derry which was baton-charged by the RUC and which is viewed as the beginning of the Troubles.
"It is ironic that 30 years on, at a time when political leaders are coming to terms with the need for change, for equality, for mutual acceptance and respect for each other's traditions, the parades issue is still with us and has shown a potential to inhibit and damage the difficult process of building peace and reconciliation." She said the parades issue symbolised the inequality "that has lain at the heart of Northern Ireland's troubled history". Thirty years ago unionist leaders had ignored or failed to understand nationalist grievances, much as they failed to understand nationalist grievance now in Portadown.
"The Portadown District Orange Order fails to recognise that there is no such thing as an absolute right, that all rights must be exercised with due regard for the rights of others, that all rights carry responsibilities, that above all when there is, as in the Drumcree situation, a conflict of rights it can only be resolved through dialogue and accommodation." Ms Rodgers was unable to complete her full statement during the five-minute period allowed, but in a script circulated to the press she said that Portadown had become a "byword for sectarianism, a place to be avoided" because of continuing protests over Drumcree, and attacks on nationalists and on police.
"Surely it is time to stand back, time for common sense, time for the local political leaders of unionism to publicly support the need for dialogue. Surely the experience of the last three decades alone is enough to prove to all of us that violence and confrontation compounds our differences and ensures that everyone pays the price," she added.
The Drumcree deadlock must be broken. "It is unacceptable and intolerable that a small unelected group of men in Portadown should continue to hold both communities to ransom," she said. Because it was a time-limited adjournment statement there was no debate on Ms Rodgers's comments. However, Mr Nigel Dodds referred to what he saw as an irony in Ms Rodgers's argument.
Ms Rodgers was effectively stating that "it was wrong to use the full force of the state to stop a parade in 1968, but it's right to use it now (at Drumcree)", he said. In a subsequent statement to the press Mr Dara O'Hagan, a Sinn Fein Assembly member for Upper Bann, called on the North's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, to meet the Garvaghy residents group.
"It is intolerable and completely unacceptable that David Trimble, who is their MP, refuses to meet with local representatives of a section of his constituents," he added.
Dr Alasdair McDonnell, an SDLP Assembly member for south Belfast, called for the creation of a minister for Belfast to focus on social and physical improvements in the city.
Dr McDonnell said that while huge strides had been made in recent years to develop Belfast, much of that improvement had been piecemeal. An Assembly member with a specific responsibility for the city could ensure a co-ordinated approach to development, he added at yesterday's Assembly meeting at Stormont.
A junior minister for Belfast could address areas such as transportation, economic regeneration, education and health, he added.
An Ulster Unionist Party member, Mr Jim Wilson, during an Assembly adjournment debate on reform of the North's Department of Environment called for a concerted drive to tackle the increasing incidence of pollution of rivers.
