Garvaghy spokesman denies group a republican front

The Garvaghy residents' spokesman Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith has rejected accusations that his recent formal involvement with Sinn Féin has proved that the nationalists' group was always a republican front.

Earlier this year Mr Mac Cionnaith took up an appointment as a policy adviser with Sinn Féin working in the constituency office of Upper Bann Sinn Féin Assembly member Mr John O'Dowd in Lurgan and also in the Sinn Féin offices at Stormont in Belfast.

Mr Mac Cionnaith has been the public face of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition since the first controversial Drumcree in 1995.

He has always insisted, however, that the coalition is a broad amalgamation of nationalist opinion in the area and was not linked to Sinn Féin.

His appointment prompted Mr David Jones, spokesman for the Portadown Orangemen to claim that unionist suspicions about an alleged link between Sinn Féin and the coalition was now confirmed. "This bears out what we have been saying from the beginning that the coalition is a Sinn Féin-inspired residents' group set up to cause tension and trouble over parading," added Mr Jones.

Mr Mac Cionnaith denied this claim and said the coalition represented all nationalists in the Garvaghy Road area, irrespective of whether they supported Sinn Féin, the SDLP or any other individuals or groupings.

"I am an employee of Sinn Féin. The post was advertised. I applied for it in the proper way. There was an interview process and I was successful. "It's as simple as that," added Mr Mac Cionnaith.

He said his brief chiefly was to shape health policy for Sinn Féin.

Meanwhile, Mr Gerry Kelly, the Sinn Féin Assembly member for North Belfast, has criticised the DUP over its membership of the North and West Belfast Parades Forum, which was involved in negotiations with Springfield Road residents last week ahead of Saturday's Orange Order Whiterock parade which passed off peacefully.

The forum, which was formed to try to try to resolve disputes over parades in north and west Belfast, is a unionist-loyalist grouping whose members include the DUP, the Ulster Unionists, the Progressive Unionist Party, Orange Order members, Protestant churches, and the UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commando.

Mr Kelly queried how the DUP could engage directly with a forum that included loyalist paramilitaries while refusing to deal directly with Sinn Féin.