The failure by the Portadown Orange District to follow the correct notification procedures in relation to parades applications means that the Orange Order cannot legally hold any marches at Drumcree church within the next month.
Any march which does not have the prior approval of the authorities leaves the organisers liable to prosecution. Under current parades legislation in the North, the organisers of any proposed parade or demonstration must give a minimum of 28 days' notice of their intention to march, on a form known as an 11/1, to the RUC.
The application is then forwarded to the Parades Commission, which will then decide if any impositions should be imposed on the proposed parade route.
During the last two years the Portadown Orangemen have repeatedly applied to complete the outstanding Drumcree march along the Garvaghy Road every Sunday morning. Now, for some unknown reason they have failed to submit any applications in relation to Drumcree to the RUC in Portadown.
The news that a parade cannot take place at Drumcree church until August 20th at the earliest has incensed many members of the Orange Order in Portadown. Rank-and-file Orangemen have accused the Portadown leadership of deliberately failing to submit the required parade applications because of the public condemnation of the violence which accompanied this years Drumcree protests.
"The Drumcree protest is dead in the water. It's finished", one angry Orangeman said at Drumcree yesterday. "The local leadership have destroyed it themselves through sheer incompetence. They should call it off now because it's going nowhere".
A loyalist street protest planned for the centre of Portadown for this afternoon has been cancelled. The organisers said they would not be taking part in any further protests in Portadown until the Orange Order resumed its Sunday parades at Drumcree.