The Parades Commission has ruled that the main Belfast Orange parade next Monday, July 12th, should not be allowed to march along the upper Ormeau Road to a final rally in the Ormeau Park.
The Belfast Orange leadership had decided on Wednesday to switch the North's largest parade to the park in protest at the commission's decision to ban the local Ballynafeigh lodge from marching through the largely Catholic lower Ormeau area to join the main parade.
The commission's chairman, Mr Alistair Graham, said that at 4.45 p.m. yesterday, it had re ceived notification from the Belfast County Grand Lodge for a different parade to the one previously submitted, along the traditional route to Edenderry, on the southern outskirts of Belfast.
He said by marching along the new route to the Ormeau Park, the Belfast leadership was proposing to bring "10, 15 perhaps 20,000 Orangemen, bandsmen and their supporters into an area which represents one of the more contentious interfaces in this city.
"It is therefore bound to bring problems - major problems of disruption, tension and damage to fragile community relationships."
The commission was aware of strong opposition to the parade from community groups, some of them cross-community, and from local political representatives in the area, he went on. The commission had earlier talked to representatives of the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community group and of community groups from the more mixed upper Ormeau Road. In such a situation, the commission's statutory procedures would require "a significant degree of consultation and evidence-gathering". This was why the law laid down that there should be 28 days' notice of parades.
Mr Graham also emphasised that Belfast City Council had not been approached for permission to use the Ormeau Park and had issued a statement yesterday saying it was therefore "unable to progress the matter by the holding of a special council meeting". The council stressed that park by-laws required its prior consent to the end-of-march Orange rally.
Mr Graham concluded by forbidding the parade "from deviating from the route of its first application" to Edenderry, submitted a month ago. He had seen parades on this traditional route and they were "good-humoured and good-spirited".
He reiterated the reasons why the small "feeder" parade down the Lower Ormeau had been banned. It was because the Ballynafeigh Orangemen had not yet gone through "a satisfactory process of engagement" with local residents, to address their legitimate concerns and to be prepared to accommodate those concerns when they had the power to do so.
"Talks about talks" had begun but it was not yet "sustained and substantive dialogue".
A clearly angry Belfast Orange county secretary, Mr Tom Haire, said he could not comment officially until he had seen the commission's determination, and a special meeting of the Belfast County Grand Lodge had taken place to discuss it. However, he said his members were not happy with the decision.
"Our people are not prepared to accept it, there'll be no more dictation. There's a feeling that it's pushing our members into a confrontation with the police. The commission is trying to up the ante. Alistair Graham is down a black tunnel and on a hiding to nothing."