Commissioner quits Orange Order

David Burrows will not deliberate on parades in Portadown

A controversial Parades Commission member has resigned from the Orange Order, the commission has revealed.

David Burrows was a member of the Portadown Lodge which was at the centre of the decade-long Drumcree dispute.

His appointment to the commission had been ruled unlawful last month, but this decision was overturned at the Court of Appeal.

Commission chairman Roger Poole said the move was "designed to remove any element of doubt" about his position.

The Parades Commission was set up by the government in 1997 to make decisions on whether controversial parades should be restricted.

'Public interest'

Mr Poole said in a statement that the decision was taken "in the interests of the greater good of the commission and the public interest generally".

The commission said it had taken account of the judgements of the courts.

It said it was "conscious" that Mr Burrows' association with the Portadown lodge meant he could not "participate fully in all of the commission's deliberations, activities and decision making processes".

The commission said in a statement that Mr Burrows would not play any part in its deliberations on parades in Portadown, "in the interests of fairness and transparency".

Mr Burrows' resignation, regardless of its motivation, is a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has left John O'Dowd Sinn Fein

Mr Burrows and Portadown Orangeman Don MacKay were at the centre of the recent court proceedings.

Mr MacKay resigned from the commission last month after it emerged he had listed DUP MP David Simpson and SDLP assembly member Dolores Kelly as referees on his application form without asking their permission.

A spokesperson for Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, which brought the legal action to have the two men removed from the commission, said on Thursday they had been vindicated by Mr Burrows' resignation.

The coalition said it was "one of the inevitable outworkings of the lengthy legal campaign with which we have been involved with since Peter Hain made his political appointments to the Parades Commission".

Sinn Fein Upper Bann assembly member John O'Dowd said the resignation "does not change the fact that the Parades Commission remains unbalanced and deeply flawed".

"Mr Burrows' resignation, regardless of its motivation, is a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has left - on this occasion, the horse was called 'public confidence'," he added.