Question Time farce

What a farce Question Time in the Assembly has become! On March 22 I asked the First Minister why two main political parties as well as nationalist groups and the wider community were being kept in the dark about the outcome of the deliberations of the Committee on Parades whilst the Loyal Orders had been fully briefed.

Mr Robinson replied that “residents groups met the working group and that political parties were also present “ Indeed!

My question was about the outcome, not the process. I wanted to know why the non-elected members of the Loyal Orders are in receipt of information on an issue of vital interest to my constituents whilst I as their elected representative am denied all knowledge.

To begin with my party was excluded from the Committee on Parades set up as a result of the Hillsborough agreement to consider new mechanisms for dealing with contentious parades.

Our view that the Parades Commission should be retained is well known. The long-standing demand by the DUP and Loyal Orders to have it scrapped is equally well known.

The real shame is that Sinn Fein having colluded with the DUP to have us excluded from the Committee in the first place have now made matters worse by agreeing to deny us any information as to its outcome in the knowledge that Orange Order members have been fully briefed. What is it they are afraid to tell us?

So much for the principle of inclusive democracy which the SDLP fought so hard to establish and to which others gave what can now be seen as lip service when it suited them in the past.

We will continue to insist that the public in general and the nationalist community as a whole including the large section of nationalists that voted for the SDLP have their rights upheld and respected.