"The Parades Commission banning the return leg of the Ballymaconnolly parade in Rasharkin is a calculated kick in the teeth for all those organisers who ensured this was always a disciplined, dignified and peaceful parade and a shameful reward for the Sinn Fein orchestrated mob who last year used violence and missiles to attack the parade. Once more the Parade Commission has shown itself on the side of the law-breaker.

 

"This decision is not only an appalling surrender to violence and the threat of violence but it is utterly illogical and inherently dangerous, because it leaves those parading at one end of the village and their transport at the other, requiring each participating individual to run the gauntlet of Sinn Fein's baying mob.

 

"The decision also marks another substantial reduction in the rights and liberties of the Protestant minority in the Rasharkin area, so typical of the trend under Sinn Fein rule. I have no doubt this craven decision will not satisfy the republican campaign to sanitise Rasharkin of its last vestiges of Protestant and Unionist culture and that next year they will be back demanding a total ban and meantime the Orange Hall will throughout the year remain a target for their venom. Such is the way with republicanism buoyed up by power at Stormont and a fawning Parades Commission."