Sectarian bigots who target Orange Halls and Protestants in Co Antrim must be defeated, it was claimed last night.
The full rigour of the law should be applied to those terrorising people in Rasharkin and Dunloy, DUP Assembly member Mervyn Storey added.
He and Orange Order Grand Master Robert Saulters met Security Minister Paul Goggins yesterday after a string of attacks on loyal lodges and properties in north Antrim.
He accused "certain republican elements" of attempting to drive Protestant families out of Rasharkin.
"The overwhelming majority of people in Rasharkin want to live peaceably along side one another, they do not want republican criminals destroying the relationships that exist between people from different backgrounds," he said.
Sinn Féin Assembly Member Pat Doherty also met Mr Goggins yesterday, to press for transfer of the former military site at Lisanelly to develop an educational village campus in Omagh, Co Tyrone.
Mr Doherty said: "I welcome the fact that the issue has now moved on to this negotiation stage and am hopeful that sufficient progress can now be made as speedily as possible so that the necessary degree of certainty that is required is secured for all the stakeholders in the educational village campus."
PA