Dialogue only way to avert "Drumcree Five"

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 11th Mar 1999

Commenting on last nights Orange Protest at Drumcree Alliance President Philip McGarry, has said that the Orange Order must engage in dialogue with local residents.

Dr McGarry said:

"Northern Ireland can not afford yet another disastrous summer such as last year."

"The Orange Order clearly must talk to local residents. There is no rational, political or ethical reason for the Orange Order to refuse to talk to local people. The reasons put forward for the failure to talk are completely unreasonable."

"Members of the Orange Order have had little difficulty in the past in talking to those associated with Loyalist paramilitaries. Indeed in 1996 David Trimble himself talked to the late Billy Wright of the LVF during the week in which that organization murdered Michael McGoldrick."

"Northern Ireland cannot afford the violent, political and economic consequences of Drumcree Five. If the Orange Order continues to refuse to talk to local residents it will bare the responsibility for the consequences."

ENDS.