Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 99)
TUESDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2004
MR ALISTAIR
SIMPSON, MR
DAVID HOEY,
MR IAIN
MCAFEE
AND MR
EDDIE KELLEY
Q80 Mr Luke: This question stems
from comments submitted from the Apprentice Boys. You have made
it clear that you have found it difficult to develop a close working
relationship—I think you refer to it as a relationship of
trust—with the Parades Commission. How would you describe
your relationship with the Commission? Do you think the suggestions
in the Quigley Report would make any improvements?
Mr Simpson: The last time the
Apprentice Boys officially met Tony Holland and the full group
of the Parades Commission was on 28 October 2001. Along with the
governing body from Londonderry, we had Apprentice Boys from Belfast,
Portadown and Castlederg which we felt represented the whole of
the province. Half-way through the meeting we made suggestions
for a better way forward and immediately Tony Holland turned round
and said to us, "I do not take orders from anyone. Meeting
closed". The Apprentice Boys have not officially met the
Parades Commission since. I feel that Tony Holland has a different
outlook on the situation compared to the former chairman of the
Commission, Alistair Graham, who met with us on many occasions,
he met residents' groups on many occasions from different parts
of the country, he had gone and visited the parades and he had
come along and discussed the whole thing. We seemed to get on
better when Alistair Graham was at the top, but Tony Holland seems
to stay in his Ivory Tower in Belfast and dictate to the rest
of us what we should do. On many occasions we were told by him
that we have to have talks if we were going to get anywhere. Yet
when we suggested having talks with him and put forward ideas
he was having nothing to do with it. That immediately put us on
guard and made us mistrust the Parades Commission.
Mr Hoey: That is coupled with
the "Spygate" issue of last year where a number of our
members were approached by the police to look after their security
on the basis that information from within the Parades Commission
was in the hands of the IRA. We have not had any communication
from the Parades Commission with regard to that matter. A fax
containing names and addresses of all the participants of the
parade was sent to a Sinn Fein member. They said, "Don't
worry. Our security is tight. It will never happen again,"
and then our members had visits from the police. We are not being
told of any way in which that information can be secure within
the Parades Commission. They talk about confidentiality; that
is nonsense. At that level it is just very difficult to go in.
Those of us who have been in there expect that our names are out
there, but it is obviously very difficult to ask others to go
in when there is the chance that those names will be passed to
the IRA at some stage. The Commission is being compromised and
there is no way out of that. Given that the Parades Commission
has made no effort to sympathise or to make any contact with us
in this regard trust is a very long way off.
Mr Kelley: We met with the original
Parades Commission with a view to them having an insight into
what our mindset was, why we did what we did and how we did what
we did. A year after we met with them they were disbanded and
the new Commission was brought in and we made the same offer to
the second Commission. We wrote to them in February 2000 asking
for a meeting. We had our meeting in May 2000 and that meeting
lasted 15 to 20 minutes. At the outset of the meeting Mr Holland
advised us that there was a conflict and he would have to leave
the meeting at eight o'clock but that he would arrange another
meeting with us. We waited for the date. We did not get one. We
phoned and we were told that only one commissioner was prepared
to meet with us. I do not feel that that gives us any sort of
reassurance that they are going to be fair and even-handed. We
are still waiting to be contacted by the Parades Commission. We
are a voluntary organisation. Most of our members work for a living.
We are province-wide in our membership. We have bands from Londonderry
and we have bands from Keady. All our bands are scattered throughout
the province. I think there is one county that is not represented
in our membership. We are a voluntary organisation and we all
have our livelihoods to seek. When we asked for an evening meeting
we were told, "We don't do evening meetings. If you want
to meet us you will have to come during the day." That does
not foster trust. We warned the first Commission and the second
Commission that we were not happy with security matters. We asked
for their staff to be covered by the Official Secrets Act. We
were told that was not necessary, that their security was adequate
and that nothing untoward would happen and we should trust them.
What was the net result? As previously stated, details of our
membership were sent to Sinn Fein and as a direct result of that
my colleague's house is like a fortress. You need to phone this
man 10 minutes before you arrive so he can get his door unlocked
because his name was on the list. Does that inspire trust, gentlemen?
It does not for me.
Q81 Mr Luke: I think it was Mr Simpson
who referred to the fact that he had been asked to make representations
on the Quigley Report. Will you be considering making a representation?
Mr Hoey: We do not know what to
do. No one has asked us to make one. We do not know what this
consultation process is about because nobody has told us. There
has been no communication. We have written to both Jane Kennedy
on the matter of IRA targeting and we have written to Paul Murphy
because we did not see why it had to be extended, we still do
not understand why. Everybody had plenty of time to read Quigley
and plenty of time to respond. Six months is a pretty long time
in anybody's book. We do not know what this consultation process
is. We have not been told officially it has been extended. We
read about it in the newspapers. We have not been told what the
process is for making representations. We have asked for meetings
and we have had no response to that. When we asked for a meeting,
all the other Loyal Orders had a meeting but not the Apprentice
Boys of Derry and yet we are the only people who have engaged
with the Parades Commission. We do not understand. In terms of
chasing and hassling and harrowing, we are a bit tired. This is
the fourth or fifth review. You are doing a review before the
other review has concluded. We are just a wee bit sceptical about
where things are going given that issues from your last report
have not been addressed and indeed have been specifically ignored
by the Parades Commission. We are getting a little bit tired.
Mr McAfee: Our organisation has
not received any notice. This is the first time I have heard about
an extension. Maybe I have missed something in the newspapers.
I have never received any correspondence whatsoever.
Q82 Mr Bailey: This is a question
for the Apprentice Boys. Both you and the Bogside Residents Group
have been identified in the Quigley review as "models of
genuine engagement". How has that been achieved and what
do you think has been the key to that success?
Mr Simpson: When I hear people
coming out with statements like that it angers me, especially
when it is the Parades Commission and they have done it on umpteen
occasions. Less than a month ago Tony Holland, when I met him
at another gathering, told me that we were "a model".
Q83 Chairman: This is not the Parades
Commission, this is Sir George Quigley.
Mr Simpson: I want to give the
answer to the question. The Apprentice Boys have spoken to every
conceivable body possible. We saw the Bogside Residents Group
as the people who were doing the damage in the City of Londonderry.
In August alone they did £5 million-worth of damage. The
following December they did £4 million-worth of damage. How
do you talk to people with that sort of mentality? We decided
that we would talk to the other residents of the Bogside, we would
talk to businessmen, to church leaders and priests to tell them
what the Apprentice Boys Association is all about and out of that
grew the Maiden City Festival which has been very successful in
the City of Londonderry. A lot of hard work went on behind the
scenes with the Parades Commission, with the head of the police
and the Minister for Home Affairs. The Apprentice Boys did not
sit back and the whole thing happened; we worked hard at it. The
Parades Commission seem to have pulled the rug from under us and
we seem to be in limbo now. I would like to see a situation where
this body here today could at least do something to rebuild the
confidence that we have lost.
Mr Hoey: Everybody uses Derry
as a good example because it is a very large parade that goes
through a city that is perceived as Nationalist. There was a comment
in the Human Rights Commission's submission about tolerance and
respect. I think to a certain extent at many levels that has been
shown by both sides in Derry but it is absent in other areas.
There is a lack of respect in other areas. Sometimes we draw Derry
out and say that it is a wonderful example of genuine engagement,
but the work done in the lower Ormeau area by our colleague, Tony
Cheavers, and the Belfast Walking Club has been exceptional. They
have had 18 meetings and we have 1,100 pages of minutes from the
early stages of dialogue which was across the table with a single
facilitator. You cannot ignore that amount of dialogue. The previous
Parades Commission certainly recognised the value and the sincerity
of that process, but it did not end up anywhere and the reason
it did not end up anywhere is because of the Parades Commission
and their attitudes. Derry is a peculiar city. You cannot simply
say it works in Derry so it will work everywhere else because
it will not. That does not mean to say there are not other examples
of very hard work being done by the Apprentice Boys in terms of
engagement with local communities and representatives of those
communities, it is simply that nobody bothers looking at those
because they have not succeeded and it is an embarrassment to
many people that the Apprentice Boys have not succeeded in reaching
a conclusion because it reflects on the other communities much
more harshly.
Q84 Mr Bailey: What did the Parades
Commission do that undermined the efforts you had made for engagement
there? Secondly, assuming that you think your engagement has been
successful and there is a body of opinion that certainly does,
what do you think you need to do to sustain that success in the
future?
Mr Simpson: If the Parades Commission
would come down to earth and meet the grass-roots not only of
organisations like ours but of ordinary people they would get
a better understanding of what is happening. If Northern Ireland
is to go forward the politics of Northern Ireland will have to
be seen to be working. I believe it has to come back into the
hands of the people of Northern Ireland. No disrespect to those
from across the water, but we have got to be in charge of our
own future and our own identity. That might be a mouthful to come
out with, but time has shown that the English politician has come
over here and tried to tell us what to do. We have been living
with 30 years of violence, death and destruction. Surely we are
the ones that ought to give the answer at the end of the day.
Q85 Chairman: We are going very wide
indeed.
Mr Hoey: There are very particular
circumstances in Londonderry. You would to undertake an exercise
where you sit down and look at the particular circumstances of
Londonderry and compare them with other areas. It really is not
easy to give a simple answer to your question because it is too
complicated.
Q86 Mr Bailey: I believe Mr Simpson
said earlier that the Parades Commission had pulled the rug from
under your feet. I am still not clear what they did.
Mr Simpson: That was the last
meeting that we had with the Apprentice Boys representing the
whole of the province in Northern Ireland. We were trying to come
to an agreement for our members in the whole of Northern Ireland
and Tony Holland thought that we were dictating to him. We were
not dictating to him, we were putting forward suggestions and
that is the way forward with any group that is going into consultation.
We felt we had been left without an answer because we had gained
no more mileage from having consultations with the Parades Commission
than what the Orange Order had accepted.
Mr Hoey: The Parades Commission
made a determination in December 2002 with respect to parades
in Londonderry. There had been no consultation prior to that.
It was in respect to four bands that they believed should not
be parading in Londonderry. We had not been consulted about this
in the run up to that determination, it just landed on our table.
Not only were most of those bands not parading in Londonderry
and therefore there was no need for the determination and if they
had been asked they would have been told those bands were not
parading, it also meant that there was a determination on the
table and we were not ready for it. If you make a determination
there are those people, no matter what the issue is, who will
start focusing on that issue and create problems. If we are not
aware of what is going on and we are not being made aware of what
is going on then we are not ready for it and we cannot prepare
for it and that is half the job and we have to prepare people
for it. We still do not know who it was that said about these
four bands because the Parades Commission will not talk to us.
We believe a growing issue is where the Parades Commission are
picking on bands very specifically, without evidence and without
due pause and that is going to cause us difficulties at some stage.
That is largely outside our control and we do not understand why
this is happening.
Q87 Chairman: Can we please ask to
have slightly briefer answers. We are going back to the same point
again and again and again and we have heard it all the first time.
Mr Kelley: The question you asked
was what the Parades Commission does for us. We have a member
band in Maghera who organised a parade and received a determination.
Both Iain and I attended when that parade took place. The conditions
laid down in the determination were stringently adhered to, so
much so that at the end of the day the Authorised Officer came
over to us and said that it had been a very well run parade. The
following year the same organiser put in an application for the
same parade on the same route and we got a further set of conditions
and determinations. Those were adhered to. This year, on top of
the determinations that we received the year before last and last
year, the Parades Commission came in again with further conditions.
The band involved adhered to all the conditions and the two previous
parades had been run without incident. There were no complaints
from the police or to the police. It is almost as though we are
playing on a football field that is like that (indicating) and
when you get half way it goes like that and the goalposts are
not there any more, they are back here. We do not know where we
are or how to police them.
Q88 Rev Smyth: There was a joint
gathering convened by businessmen and there may have been one
person from the Residents' Group there along with somebody from
the Apprentice Boys of Derry, but there has been no meeting between
the Bogside Residents Group and the Apprentice Boys, has there?
Mr Simpson: I always maintained
that I would not meet the Bogside Residents Group face to face
but that I would meet residents of the Bogside without any problem.
The meetings we had were called by the businessmen.
Q89 Rev Smyth: I want to deal with
the other question since it does affect me as the representative
for south Belfast. Am I not right in saying that the reference
at an earlier hearing to a decision affecting something 100 miles
away was when a decision was made that the Walking Club could
not walk down the Ormeau Road because it would have an impact
on the gathering in Londonderry.
Mr Simpson: Yes, of course the
reason why that came across was that the residents of the Bogside
Residents Group, namely "Donncha" MacNiallais, had gone
to south Belfast and had a meeting with the Residents' Group and
they had decided that, either at Londonderry or south Belfast,
there would be problems and therefore the parade would have to
be called off.
Q90 Mark Tami: This is a question
for the Ulster Bands Association. You are very critical of the
role of Authorised Officers and talk about them being hostile
to the mediation process. Could you perhaps elaborate a bit on
that?
Mr McAfee: We can only use our
own experiences. We have met some Authorised Officers who have
been very open and good, but some are almost impossible to deal
with. Face to face they are not too bad but two days later you
may find that the goalposts seem to have moved. It is as though
there is a persona put forward when you meet them and when they
meet with opposition or whatever you want to call them their attitude
changes or maybe the drive up the road is enough to change their
attitude. Another incident this year was where there was a parade
in Carshalton which had been deemed to be contentious in the eyes
of the residents of the community. The Authorised Officer met
the band and there were conditions imposed and then met. The only
problem was the PSNI asked for it to be held back for ten minutes
because a group of local people wanted to get out before the parade,
which was agreed and the leader of the band held them back. The
parade met the timescale, it met the conditions and the leader
in charge of that parade shook the organiser's hand at the end
of the parade. We had SDLP members standing watching it and I
have spoken to them recently and they have no problem with it.
Eddie touched upon the fact that you can seem to do no right.
Q91 Mark Tami: You are more positive
about community forums. Why would they be different?
Mr McAfee: I am a member of the
local one in Ballymoney where we sit down and there is a range
of views taken from the SDLP, the Republicans and people come
from a camogie club. It might not solve all the problems, but
we were able to talk about issues in very structured surroundings.
Q92 Mark Tami: This is a question
for the Apprentice Boys of Derry. You talk of informal and trusted
persons playing a more positive role. Are you talking about Authorised
Officers? If not, who are you talking about and what is your view
of the role of Authorised Officers?
Mr Hoey: When you go into dialogue
the people involved have to trust each other. I do not know who
those people are. In Londonderry it was the businessmen who were
entrusted to take the process forward. We had an agreed facilitator,
Avila Kilmurray, who was head of the Northern Ireland Voluntary
Trust at the time, who chaired the meetings in Belfast for us
and that was an agreed trusted person. Her job was not to take
part in them and he let the two sides talk together. Our experience
of Authorised Officers is that they are a very mixed bunch. At
a meeting with the Parades Commission back in the early days we
unveiled that the Authorised Officer was holding back information
that was crucial to the decision because he did not think it was
very important. We have Authorised Officers who are trying to
engage and to facilitate engagement and they are the ones that
we never hear of. I think a problem in the past year has been
that I believe the Parades Commission has now taken on directly
the employment of their Authorised Officers. We have noticed a
change in Authorised Officers because now they work for the Parades
Commission directly. The two are playing off against each other;
they do not seem to be working in tandem. Those with experience
of the issues seem to be in some sort of conflict with the Parades
Commission and the Parades Commission are putting Authorised Officers
as a barrier to the Parades Commission which is creating tensions
in terms of trying to find a peaceful settlement.
Q93 Mark Tami: So it is more of a
mixed bag.
Mr Hoey: It is a very mixed bag.
Mr McAfee: The word trust was
brought up earlier. We had an incident three years ago at an Orange
parade where the Authorised Officer was watching the parade and
we had an interest because the band was taking part the following
month. The Authorised Officer was seen getting into a local Sinn
Fein MLA car to drive off. Does that instil trust? That may not
seem significant, but what that symbolises is very significant.
Mr Kelley: In all my time of dealing
with the Parades Commission I have yet to see an Authorised Officer's
report on either a discussion or a parade that has passed. If
these people have a problem we do not hear about it and we cannot
address it. The first time we discover it is when the Parades
Commission hand out a determination on the following year's parade.
When we go to meet them to ask them what the problem is they tell
us, "It's confidential. We cannot tell you."
Q94 Mr Pound: I think that is a very
interesting point. It is one that we were not possibly going to
pursue today. Every Saturday I mark the referee who officiates
at the game that I am at and the referee marks the club and we
see each other's reports. I appreciate we are talking about transparency.
Sir George Quigley is not a great distance away from us and he
is hearing what is said. One of the core proposals of Sir George's
review is the abolition of the Parades Commission and its replacement
with two separate bodies. I want to ask the Apprentice Boys a
question. In your memorandum you said how dissatisfied you are
about the proposal for a Facilitation Agency. What would be your
alternative?
Mr Hoey: We have been quite specific
in terms of how we would envisage the development from Quigley.
I think Sir George raised the Scottish system which has a different
legal process. We do not need more bodies set up. We need things
to be simple, clear, transparent and fair. If you have two bodies
there is going to be competition, conflict, all sorts of problems.
We want a simple process. If there was a register of parades everybody
would know when these parades were. There are only a few parades
that suddenly get thrown into the pot at the last minute. There
could be a register of parades, a period of time in which you
could raise objections and that would be heard by the registrar;
the registrar would make a ruling after considering all the facts
in an open hearing and everybody could come in and say what their
objections were to that parade, if there were any objections.
The police, the local residents or whoever wants to come in could
simply put their objections down and then we would have the ruling
by the registrar. If a conflict remained then it would go straight
to a tribunal and it would decide.
Q95 Mr Pound: You say that you fear
the tactical use of some of the formal processes. Can you imagine
a situation in which a public meeting would take place to comment
or inform about a particular parade?
Mr Hoey: It would be a public
hearing rather than a public meeting. If people were disorderly
they would be removed from the room. I think that is a fair situation
and that happens in any courtroom. If the crowd is unruly they
are in contempt of the hearing and they get removed. That might
not be something the police might anticipate. We are looking at
how many. I think this will also raise the issue of confidentiality
and I know that is one of the issues you want to look at. When
we are in dialogue we know everybody we are talking to. Judicial
review is taken with regard to a decision or a determination by
the Parades Commission and as a party to that judicial review
we get the names and addresses of everybody who actually has made
that complaint within the process. Let us face it, everybody knows
everybody in Northern Ireland. Confidentiality is a bit of a red
herring here at times. We have never asked for total confidentiality.
If there is an affidavit and substantial views are put forward,
we would be happy with that as long as they are put forward by
a solicitor and as long as the registrar is satisfied that that
is a genuine purpose. There are details to be sorted out. We do
not believe that it is over-complicated and we do not think it
should be either.
Q96 Mr Pound: I appreciate everybody
knows everybody here. You have, quite rightly, made an issue over
the release of some people's names which ended up with Sinn Fein.
There are still barriers that need to exist.
Mr Hoey: There is a distinct difference
there in terms of names and addresses being faxed. In the lower
Ormeau there were 10 or 15 people from that community who took
part in the discussions. Everybody who was going to make an objection
had some opportunity to come into that meeting and make an objection.
The LOCC in their own mind were representing that community. So
if they are taking on the leadership and representing that community,
what is the issue over all these other people because surely that
can be channelled through the public representatives, which again
is not a secret matter. Many other people make objections and
we do not know who they are. We talk to the LOCC and then Uncle
Tom Cobbley and all turns up at the Parades Commission, but we
are never told who they are or what they are saying. A public
hearing would take that away. It is a much more fair and simple
process.
Q97 Mr Pound: The Bands Association
say in their memorandum that the Parades Commission has lost all
credibility and should be wound up and replaced. Could you elaborate
on that loss of credibility? To be honest, you have addressed
the credibility issue in many of your earlier answers. What would
you like to see as a replacement?
Mr Kelley: Anything that is fair,
even-handed and open.
Q98 Rev Smyth: As I understand it,
you have expressed concern about recommendations to give notice
of proposed parades for the following season no later than 1st
October and for a parade falling before 1st April at least six
months should be given. What problems would this create for associations
such as yours?
Mr McAfee: We would not be totally
against notification of intent. Our problem would be notification
of exact dates and details of the parade, but that is very difficult
to organise and any parade organiser would find that near impossible.
It is the same with protests, you could not organise it that far
down the line. A notification of intent has already been mentioned.
Most parades are annual and so it is not a problem for the organiser
to notify that they will be holding a parade the following year.
Q99 Chairman: Why is there this difficulty
about specific dates since these things are repeated year after
year after year?
Mr McAfee: It has been more relevant
for us than the Apprentice Boys who hold their big days on certain
dates. The bands will hold a parade usually some time during the
year, but it is a bit of a juggled area and there are less localised
clashes of parades in the same area. The police do not like to
be policing two parades in the one area on the same evening. You
could have one or two parades in the same area but there will
have to be changes.
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