I propose to take Questions Nos. 13, 19, 25, 35 and 40 together.
I discussed the prospects for this year's marching season and ways in which the potential for a repetition of the events of last summer could be averted with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland at the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference on 12 March last. As I made clear in my remarks after the conference, both Governments are anxious to ensure that everything possible should be done to defuse the situation and are convinced that this should be done through dialogue and reasonable compromise.
I have had meetings recently with representatives of the communities and residents' groups most directly concerned with the parades issue. For example, I met with a delegation of representatives from a number of residents' groups on 26 February last. We discussed their views on the North Report and on the prospects for this year's marching season. I also took the opportunity to commend and encourage the commitment of residents' groups to pursue every available opportunity for dialogue and local accommodation.
The Government made clear on this, as on many other occasions, its belief that local dialogue and agreement, based on mutual respect and accommodation, is the best way to resolve contentions arising from parades. It is the Government's earnest hope that local agreement and accommodation will yet emerge as factors which both ease tensions and point the way towards a peaceful resolution of the parades issue.
The Government's position on this fully accords with the views of the overwhelming majority of both communities in Northern Ireland. According to the public attitude surveys carried out as part of the consultations undertaken by the North Review, 97 per cent of Catholics and 83 per cent of Protestants agree that negotiated accommodation should be sought in disputes between residents and marchers.
These views should serve as the guiding lights in the response of all those in positions of responsibility and leadership on how to handle disagreements between parade organisers and residents. While there are disturbing signs of confrontation, there are also some encouraging signs that those most directly involved in the parades issue, including in the Orange Order, are heeding the views of the people in Northern Ireland and are seeking to defuse the tensions likely to lead to confrontation this summer. Individuals and groups are engaging in the difficult and complex process of dialogue and mediation. They deserve support and encouragement by all those in a position to offer it.
The Government's commitment to dialogue and agreement is reflected in its support for the core recommendation of the report of the North Review of Parades, the establishment of an independent body to mediate, arbitrate and, if necessary, issue determinations on contentious parades. I have made clear on a number of occasions our disappointment with the British Government's decision to proceed, for the moment, with only the non-adjudicatory aspects of the report. We have repeatedly pressed the British Government to establish without delay the independent parades commission as recommended by the North Review.
This was reflected in the communiqué issued at the close of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference on 12 March, which makes clear that the Irish Government urged immediate implementation of the report's recommendations, in particular the powers of determination proposed for the parades commission.
The potential of the parades issue to destabilise the situation means that responsibilities on this issue go beyond the necessary dialogue we wish to see between marching organisations and residents associations. Northern Ireland remains a divided society. In the absence of a political settlement, responsibility rests with the British authorities. The authorities need to take all appropriate steps to ensure the pre-eminence of the rule of law in the months that lie ahead.
The ongoing protests at Harryville are an affront to all decent people. Their toleration by the authorities appears to be a calculation that it is the lesser of two evils, yet it is appalling that the community's right to attend Mass in their parish church can only be exercised by running a gauntlet of abuse, menace and violence.
What is normally the first march of the season is due to take place at Easter on the Lower Ormeau Road. The violence which marred that event last year was seen as a portent of things to come, and so it proved, but it was not inevitably so. Time to reach agreements is certainly becoming a diminishing resource. It must be used as productively as possible by all those concerned to avoid another summer of conflict and confrontation and the consequences which threaten to flow from that.
I hope those who have the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland at heart will prevail and that the wishes of the vast majority are realised by a summer in which local agreements on contentious parades are brokered, determinations in the absence of such agreement are issued and respected and, above all, the rule of law emerges as the anchor on which peace and stability rests.