THE Rev Ian Paisley said after a meeting yesterday with the RUC Chief Constable he was optimistic that a solution could be found which would bring an end to the picketing of churches.
Earlier, the Presbyterian Moderator, Dr Harry Allen, condemned the events at the Catholic church in Harryville, Ballymena, Co Antrim, last Saturday and called for all picketing of churches to be abandoned.
Spokesmen for the loyalist fringe parties, the PUP and UDP, rejected allegations that loyalist paramilitaries were involved in the Ballymena violence.
Mr David Adams of the UDP said that claims to this effect by the DUP leader were outrageous and inaccurate. He alleged a DUP councillor had acted as a spokesman for the Harryville protesters when the protests were initiated, and that Mr Ian Paisley jnr had warned that serious consequences could result from a recent ban on an Orange parade in Dunloy, Co Antrim.
Dr Paisley did not elaborate on yesterday's discussions with the Chief Constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, but said he had told Mr Flanagan the problem at Harryville was associated with the prevention of the church parade in Dunloy.
Yesterday morning, however, the Rev John Gilkinson, minister at the Presbyterian church in Dunloy, said his congregation could not really understand the link between the events at Dunloy and Harryville.
He said that, by and large, there was a congregation in the Dunloy church every Sunday and they held evening services. "We are able to worship very freely," he said in an interview on BBC Radio Ulster.
Yesterday Mr Gilkinson was presented with a cheque for more than £1,000 which had been collected among the Catholic parishioners of Dunloy as a gesture of support for the Presbyterian congregation following incidents three weeks ago in which vandals broke windows in the Dunloy Presbyterian church.
In another interview yesterday Mr John Finlay, a spokesman for the Dunloy Lodge of the Orange Order, was asked about the refusal of the lodge to discuss with Dunloy residents' representatives the conditions on which an Orange parade could pass through the village.
Mr Finlay said to negotiate with the Dunloy residents' group would be to elevate the protesters in Dunloy to the role of allowing them to decide "who walks the kings highway" It was up to the forces of law and order to decide that.
The Presbyterian Moderator, Dr Allen, said that the escalation of civil conflict was only in the interests of those who did not wish to see the creation of a peaceful and just society.
He called on members of the Presbyterian Church to take a lead in abandoning the picketing of churches and supporting the rule of law and order. "Decisions may not always be as we would wish them, but those who decide to take the law into their own hands cannot form part of a civilised society and clearly have no Christian ethos," he said in a statement.