New Ulster parades commission members revealed
A former nationalist MP and a prominent Orangeman are to serve on the next Parades Commission in the North, it emerged tonight.
Doctor Joe Hendron, a former SDLP MP, who unseated Sin Féin president Gerry Adams, in west Belfast in 1992, was among three men and three women chosen for the new look commission which will be chaired by former trade unionist, Roger Poole.
But he will also be joined by David Burrows, a Portadown Orangeman, who was barred from marching down the nationalist Garvaghy Road in the Drumcree parades dispute from 1998.
It is also understood that Northern Secretary Peter Hain has appointed to the commission Anne Monaghan, a former Women's Coalition election candidate and independent member of Belfast's District Policing Partnership.
Other commission members include Donald MacKay, a fireman for 26 years who has been a member of the Orange Order, and the Royal Black Institution, Vilma Patterson, a former chair of the Women in Business Network and Alison Scott-McKinley, a lay magistrate and former independent member of Magherafelt District Policing Partnership.
Mr. Poole will take over from Tony Holland as chairman of the Parades Commission in the New Year.
He is a former Assistant General Secretary of the health unions, NUPE and Unison.
In 1989 and 1990, he was the public face of the ambulance dispute as a chief union negotiator.
Mr Poole also played a key role in the merger of three trade unions to form Unison and in 1999, he was part of the team established by British prime minister Tony Blair to examine the future of the Co-operative Movement.
