Trimble: the present law promotes "instability"

Trimble Demands Changes to Law as Marching Season Approaches

With the Drumcree parade just 10 days away, Mr Trimble told the House of Commons that current laws had failed to bring about peace and reconciliation. Instead the Public Order Act (Northern Ireland), under which assemblies can be banned by the police, had sparked "instability" while setting people at each other's throats, he said.

Mr Trimble complained that, under the legislation, "illegal activity by nationalists is ignored and charges are not brought ..." But it was "used against peaceful, law-abiding" Loyalist marchers who represented the "backbone of the community" and were following their traditions.

Crucial meetings to try to ease tensions over the developing parades crisis in Northern Ireland are due to begin on Friday. The Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam is desperate for agreement to prevent the sort of violence which erupted last year and plunged the Province into deep conflict.

Mr Trimble blamed previous trouble in the Garvaghy Road, where the one of the marches is due to take place, on nationalists bent on driving Unionists out of the area. He said the Orange Order had taken a "conciliatory approach" to the issue and he accused a small group of people of "deliberately manipulating the problems to try to destabilise society".