A SPOKESMAN for the Garvaghy Road residents in Portadown has called on all parties involved in attempts to resolve the Drumcree marching dispute to return to help the drawing board and devise an entirely a new talks process.
Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, who met the Security Minister, Mr Adam Ingram, at Stormont yesterday, said he was disillusioned at the amount of time that which was being wasted "going round and round in circles".
"Everything that has happened up to now has been driven by the single unionist demand of holding a sectarian march. I believe it is now time for the process to be widened out and properly structured for the future.
"After all these processes, can anyone honestly say that the situation has moved one inch forward? We believe it's time now to sit back and take stock of the situation and look at the various flaws in the past processes and start afresh. "If that means taking the next while and sitting down designing and defining a proper process, defining people's roles, defining the format and structure, and agenda, then so be it."
He said his group put new ideas to Mr Ingram but refused to expand on what they were. The talks were the latest in a series of initiative to break the deadlock in Portadown, Co Armagh, over . Orangemen have been protesting since July last year and the independent Parades Commission has banned the past two annual marches from going marches down the mainly nationalist Garvaghy Road.
Earlier this week, the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, was part of an Orange delegation which met the Political Development Minister, Mr George Howarth, to discuss the situation. Mr Trimble criticised the Garvaghy residents and the Parades Commission for not attending the meeting.
However, Mr Mac Cionnaith accused Mr Trimble of using the issue for his own political ends and said his influence as Northern Ireland First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader gave him an unfair advantage.
An Orange Order spokesman for Portadown district, Mr David Jones, reacted angrily to Mr Mac Cionnaith's comments. "We have never seen anything that would lead us to believe that face-to-face contact with the residents would lead to any change, because Breandan Mac Cionnaith has made so much mileage out of this, and it is mileage for his own agenda," he said on radio.