Examination of Witnesses (Questions 418
- 419)
TUESDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2001
THE RT
HON DAVID
TRIMBLE, MLA, MP, AND
MR DAVID
CAMPBELL
Chairman
418. First Minister, whenever we take evidence
here we forget we have these machines, we shall gradually remember
again. First Minister, it is extremely good of you to put in your
memorandum and also to have consented to enable us to take evidence
from you. We will endeavour to make the questions follow a logical
order, but they may come from different corners of the room. You
should feel totally free, as is the pattern with all select committees,
to gloss any answer you give, either here orally or in writing
afterwards, and we will retain the right to put supplementary
questions to you in writing after the event. Is there anything
you would like to say before we embark?
(Mr Trimble) Correct me if I am wrong,
but I thought you would want me to make an introductory statement,
however if you want to go straight into questions—
419. We welcome that.
(Mr Trimble) First of all, may I observe it is the
first time I have ever given evidence to a select committee or
a Northern Ireland Assembly committee, they have not tracked me
down yet, no doubt that will come. With regard to the legislation
on the parades and the existence of parades, right from the time
when the legislation was going through the House until recently,
since then, in terms of my experiences of dealing with the Parades
Commission I did meet them once or twice in a general party capacity
to deal with the issue generally. Most of my contacts with them
have been specifically with regard to the Drumcree issue. That
has actually been, I would suggest, the most difficult issue that
we have in terms of parades and the most difficult issue the Commission
has had to deal with. Members will recall that after the legislation
was enacted or after the report on parades the previous government
formed the Commission to operate on a non-statutory basis, so
that in 1997 the decision actually lay with the police and, to
some extent, with the NIO. Once the legislation came into effect
that transferred responsibility to the Parades Commission to take
decisions with regard to parades. The first Drumcree parade was
the one in 1998. Obviously the summer of 1998 was an extremely
difficult one, coming immediately after agreement on the referendum,
which complicated the issue significantly. My only involvement
directly in that issue at that time was shortly before Drumcree
Sunday when the Government relayed a message to me, a message
which I understood to come from the leader of Sinn Féin.
It was said to me that it would be very helpful if I could get
some people to go up to the Garvaghy Road and speak to the Residents
Association. Believing that might have an effect I did encourage
a couple of our party members in Portadown to do just that. Unfortunately,
like a number of other initiatives it was barren. Whether it was
from the leader of Sinn Féin or the Government I am not
in a position to say, but it was somewhat misleading. Subsequent
to that, in July 1998, there was an attempted mediation lead by
the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff. My own involvement in that
is that I asked David, here, who is on my staff as a special adviser,
to go and observe the proceedings and to provide liaison with
the officers in Portadown District Orange Lodge. Then in the winter/spring
of 1998-1999 I started off, first, with a series of meetings with
the officers of Portadown District Lodge, from the point of view
of trying to encourage the Lodge to move to a position where it
would obtain some greater degree of public sympathy in Northern
Ireland and aimed at a constructive, peaceful protest rather than
the situation we experienced before that. Then in the spring of
1999 to try and develop an initiative I started off by inviting
all of the elected representatives geographically of the Portadown
area, councillors, assembly members, myself, I asked them to come
together to discuss the issue and use that device in the local
government elections. Two independents have been returned to Craigavon
Council for the Portadown area, this includes Mr Breandan MacCionnaith,
who was then chief spokesman of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition.
This was essentially a decision to bring Mr MacCionnaith into
some sort of process and discussion. Under the cover of these
meetings of all the elected representatives I did have some direct
personal conversations with Mr MacCionnaith and I asked him whether
he would be prepared to be involved in a serious effort to resolve
the issue involving direct discussions. He said that he would.
He did speak to me twice, on these occasions a third meeting was
promised but did not materialise. In the course of doing this
I kept the Chairman and the Secretary of the Parades Commission
fully informed of all of this activity. I was hoping that these
would be taken into account by the Commission. The culmination
of this came in the summer of 1999 when as a result of these and
other meetings we had a more formal process, which took place
at Stormont House. Again the Prime Minister sent his Chief of
Staff Jonathan Powell to engage in that mediation. We persuaded
Portadown District to appoint representatives to engage in direct
discussions with the Residents Association. The District agreed
to do this and appointed a team of four political and legal representatives,
the political representatives being myself, Mr David McNarry,
David Campbell, and Richard Monteith being their legal representative.
That team engaged in direct talks in Stormont House on 27th June
with the representatives of Garvaghy Road Resident's Coalition.
The discussions lasted over several hours. They were intensive.
Towards the evening, the residents asked for an adjournment and
the meeting never continued. The significant thing about the discussions
on that date was that that day was the last day before which the
Parades Commission had to issue a determination for the Drumcree
service. I would have liked the discussion to be earlier, but
it was not possible for us to do that before that day. In my view
the Garvaghy Road Resident's Association were prevaricating and
not engaging, believing that the Parades Commission would rule
in their favour. We asked the Parades Commission to postpone a
decision until they could hear the outcome of these discussions
but unfortunately it was not until very late at night I was able
to go down and give evidence to the Parades Commission. After
that Jonathan Powell also spoke directly to them and asked for
a further delay in the issue of determination in the hope that
further talks would prove productive. Unfortunately they did not
delay. The Parades Commission did delay for 24 hours but the residents
refused to re-engage. Then they made a determination which supported
the residents. I have to say, Chairman, I am accustomed to dealing
with hostile meetings, and sometimes when you encounter hostility
it is not a matter of what people say, but it is very much a matter
of body language and attitude, but I have very rarely met such
sustained hostility as I did at that meeting. This was not unusual.
The reason why I went through that was simply to say that we have
a situation here where efforts have been made to mediate, where
the Commission's informal decision talks about the desirability
of engagement and mediation, but even when engagement occurred
the Commission backed the position of the Garvaghy Road Residents'
Coalition. It was that that led me it observe, as I did at that
time, that I did not think that the Portadown District would ever
get a fair hearing from the Commission. After that engagement
in 1999 the Prime Minister did encourage Northern Ireland and
held talks but he was unable to reach an agreement. He did encourage
the Portadown District to carry out their annual church service
and parade in a peaceful manner. No credit was given for this
by the Parades Commission. I maintained contact with the District
and when in the autumn the talks representing both sides began
it was basically the same team, Richard Monteith, David McNarry
and David Campbell. I, myself, was absent on that occasion. They
engaged in a further mediation effort. We asked the Parades Commission
to send independent observers to witness the talks and they did
so, but the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition refused them access
to the meeting. A record of the meeting was maintained and forwarded
to the Chairman of the Commission. However, after a number of
sessions the Residents then found fault with the Chairman and
broke off the talks. Again, the Parades Commission ignored the
behaviour of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition and simply
used it as the usual determination against the Portadown District.
While the genuine efforts of the Portadown District were not recognised
by the Commission they were recognised by the wider public and
the Government. Following representations it did conduct a review
of the workings of the Parade Commission. This review was completed
towards the end of 1999 and it did result in the recruitment of
a new Commission in February 2000. I do not think that review
was as effective as it could have been. It was done by the same
team of civil servants who had been working with the Parades Commission
since its inception. The terms of the review were drawn far too
narrowly, it was in the context of existing legislation, whereas
the view that I expressed very strongly to government then, and
since, was that that legislation itself was defective and ought
to be amended. In particular we were trying to persuade the Government
to amend the legislation to incorporate elements of the European
Convention of Human Rights; that Convention had been completely
ignored by the Commission. We have maintained contact with the
new Commission and with the District. Unfortunately the new Commission
has not really worked, where it has tried, I think, to present
itself in a more open manner to myself and to others it has continued
to arrive at the same decision as its predecessors. We maintained
regular contact with the Chairman. I meet the Commission fairly
regularly and also Mr Brian Currin, who has been engaged in trying
to mediate a settlement. Mr Currin is not acting on behalf of
the Commission or anyone in this respect. While there is some
indication from the Commission that they wish to try and present
themselves in a more open-minded manner the actual decisions have
not changed and, in effect, by their position they continue to
maintain the veto that the Garvaghy Road residents have, which
is something which flies against my understanding of our obligations
under the European Convention. I am not aware of that being brought
into their thinking.
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