Parades Commission Orangeman faces complaint
The Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments is to receive an official complaint about an Orangeman serving on Northern Ireland’s Parades Commission, it emerged today.
Nationalist SDLP Assembly member Dolores Kelly confirmed she was lodging a formal complaint about the appointment last November by Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain of Don MacKay to the commission which adjudicates on controversial marches.
Last week it was revealed Mr MacKay, who is a Portadown Orangeman, had named Ms Kelly as a referee on his application form to the Government without consulting her, even though they were diametrically opposed on parades issues.
The Upper Bann MLA insisted that even if she had been asked by Mr MacKay to provide a reference, she would have turned him down given their different opinions.
She and other nationalists have demanded Mr Mackay’s resignation.
Ms Kelly said today: “The code of practice of the Office of the Commissioner of Public Appointments states that best practice should be used with regard to references.
“How is it best practice for a man to use me as a referee without my consent?
“How is it best practice for the Northern Ireland Office not to check the reference?”
In a letter last week to Ms Kelly, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain insisted he had appointed the best person for the job.
However the SDLP, Sinn Féin and the nationalist Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition have condemned the Orangeman.
The appointments of Mr Mackay, a former Ulster Unionist councillor who has since joined the DUP, and former Portadown District Master David Burrows were criticised by nationalists who voiced fears about the British government’s handling of the Parades Commission.
Garvaghy Road residents, who have been locked in an eight-year dispute with Orangemen on the banned Drumcree parade, are preparing a High Court challenge to the appointment of those men who are members of the Portadown district.
Ms Kelly said she would also raise with the commission concerns that NIO officials had said those who appointed Mr MacKay were impressed that she had appeared to have given him a reference.
She continued: “I want the commissioner to investigate these abuses and uncover the truth about what went wrong in this case.
“Mr MacKay should also save himself and the Parades Commission any further embarrassment by resigning from the body immediately.”
