Debate contribution: Parades Commission: Drumcree Determination
Debate contribution by Mr Jonathan Buckley on .
- MLA
- Mr Jonathan Buckley
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 28 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Matter of the Day
- Heading
- Parades Commission: Drumcree Determination
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5761688
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The Parades Commission made a lawful determination, permitting 35 members of Portadown District LOL No 1 to return peacefully and silently from their church parade, via the Garvaghy Road, after 28 years. That ruling was upheld by the courts, and it must be respected. For 28 years, Sinn Féin and others told Portadown Orangemen and the wider Northern Ireland public to abide by the Parades Commission's determination. This is the question today: what has changed? The rule of law cannot mean that a determination is respected only when people agree with it. Peaceful protest is a legitimate part of any democratic society, but protest does not confer a right to unlawfully obstruct a lawful procession, nor does it confer the right for mob rule. If, as is clearly the case, there is evidence that any elected representative committed or encouraged an offence, they must be pursued and prosecuted in line with the law. Michelle O'Neill, a self-proclaimed First Minister for all, conducting the orchestra on the Garvaghy Road and taking part in and encouraging participation in what was an unlawful protest, represents a flagrant breach of the law and her obligations under the Pledge of Office.
When we see a First Minister, Members of Parliament and a Principal Deputy Speaker of this House actively engaged in criminality, the public are right to be angry. There must be consequences for lawmakers who become lawbreakers. Sinn Féin and SDLP representatives linked arms illegally across the road with known violent dissident republican terrorists, and that must have consequences, something in which the Alliance Party and the Justice Minister used to believe. It seems that there is one standard for unionists and another for republicans. We see the hypocrisy, but let us be clear: it simply cannot be business as usual in this place. In any democracy, unequivocal support for the rule of law and policing is foundational. That is where we stand. The question now is what the Secretary of State and, indeed, the Chief Constable will do to ensure that the law is upheld.
342 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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