Debate contribution: Parades Commission: Drumcree Determination
Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on .
- MLA
- Mr Gerry Carroll
- Party at the time
- People Before Profit Alliance
- Date
- 28 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Matter of the Day
- Heading
- Parades Commission: Drumcree Determination
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5761725
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I stood on the Garvaghy Road on Saturday night, and I was back again for most of Sunday, standing shoulder to shoulder with residents. I commend other parties and MLAs who did so, including the First Minister. I will tell the House what I saw. I saw elderly men and women who lived through 1997 refuse to be moved off their own streets. I saw a community that had been abandoned by every institution that was supposed to protect it. Let us be honest about what happened over the weekend. The Parades Commission folded the moment that the DUP and TUV turned up the heat. What stopped the march at the weekend was not a determination or a judge; it was thousands of ordinary people linking arms in the rain for hours on end. There is an important lesson there that some would do well to learn. For decades, people have been told to put their faith in the Parades Commission instead of their own organised strength. This weekend showed exactly what that faith is worth: not a jot. Now we are told that power-sharing could collapse. Let us be honest: if it does collapse, what will we lose? We will lose institutions in which the DUP weaponises the petition of concern to block equal marriage and reform of the minimum age of criminal responsibility and which it now lines up to use against the conversion therapy Bill. It is a party that is up to its eyeballs in scandals and that reaches for sectarianism every time to distract and divide people and get them to look the other way. Now it is calling for elected representatives' heads for their having the audacity — the absolute gall to do what? — to show solidarity with residents under siege from toxic Orange triumphalism. For those not paying attention, I will give them a little reminder. Carla Lockhart MP stood alongside masked men hurling abuse at a peaceful march for Gaza in Scarva. Those men threw rocks and insults at journalists. Education Minister Paul Givan attended an anti-immigration protest in Lisburn, the day after a brutal stabbing, pouring petrol on the flames of racist hate. Was there a determination for that march? I suspect not. Was Carla Lockhart's presence at Drumcree church at the weekend lawful? I suspect not. It cannot be one rule for unionist MPs and Ministers and one for everybody else. We then have Members lecturing in the House about the rule of law. The hypocrisy is astounding. This institution is failing. Members talked about the "mob" on the Garvaghy Road in a very insulting way. I have given Members a brief history of it.
446 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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