"Unofficial" efforts at a resolution of the Drumcree parade dispute which has lingered since the mid-1990s are being made. Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor, reports.
A reliable Orange Order source said attempts to end the dispute in time for the July Somme commemoration march had been made "over the course of the last year" and that more recent developments were giving rise to hope.
It was thought this may be linked to the decision of Garvaghy Road residents' spokesman Breandán MacCionnaith to resign from Sinn Féin. However he told The Irish Times he had quit the party "earlier this year" in a decision "totally unconnected to Drumcree".
Orangemen have been prevented from returning to their Portadown lodge from Drumcree parish church via the nationalist Garvaghy Road since 1998 after previous parades resulted in serious violence. Applications to the Parades Commission, which is opposed by the Orange Order, are made weekly but are turned down in the absence of talks between the marchers and residents.
The order said last night it wanted a resolution to what it calls "the Garvaghy Road problem" .
The loyal order has set its face against negotiations with nationalist residents and against dealing with the Parades Commission. But last December Orangemen indicated they were willing to go into mediation on the issue involving an independent chairman.
The source said last night that order representatives met unionist politicians before talks on the restoration of devolution at St Andrews in Scotland last October.
More recently, Orangemen sent a dossier to Northern Secretary Peter Hain containing a number of suggestions. He was further pressed on the issue during a visit to Orange Order headquarters in Belfast recently.
It is understood that the impasse between the commission and the order could be circumvented if the commission's role is "reviewed".
John O'Dowd, an Upper Bann Assembly member and leader of the Sinn Féin group at Stormont, confirmed yesterday that Drumcree had been discussed at leadership level between his party and the Democratic Unionists.