THE COST of policing the riot at Ardoyne in north Belfast on July 13th was more than £420,000 (€489,000), the PSNI has told the North’s policing board. The cost of the operation emerged as concerns began to grow about a loyalist bands parade in Rasharkin, Co Antrim next Friday.
Dissident republicans were blamed for fomenting the trouble at Ardoyne. The police also reported that at least one live round was fired at officers during the trouble that flared ahead of a return Orange Order parade past the Ardoyne shops.
The overall cost of policing the trouble was £422,000, according to the PSNI.
As board chairman Barry Gilligan complained that parades were eating up valuable finance and police resources, there were nationalist calls for the North’s Parades Commission to review its decision to allow a parade of 41 loyalist bands in Rasharkin next Friday night.
An angry meeting of mainly nationalist residents in Rasharkin on Thursday night queried why the parade should be permitted in the predominantly nationalist town.
William Frazer, of the Protestant victims’ group, Fair (Families Acting for Innocent Relatives), who attended the meeting, said that he and his colleagues were subjected to anti-Protestant sectarian taunts by some of those at the meeting.
