Portadown Orangeman David Burrows has said that in his role as a member of the revamped Parades Commission, he is prepared to meet the Garvaghy Road residents and any other nationalist groups willing to meet him.
The former Portadown Orange Order district master, who for many years was a central figure at Drumcree, yesterday stood over his decision to join the commission. He faced an onslaught of criticism from Orangemen opposed to the parades body and also from nationalists.
"I have always had an interest in parades and that is well-documented," Mr Burrows said. "With my experience, I am now in a different role and hopefully I can bring a different dimension to the commission."
Earlier this year, he stood down as Portadown district master for personal reasons, but he is still a member of Portadown No 1 lodge which annually seeks to parade down the nationalist Garvaghy Road from Drumcree.
Mr Burrows is one of the seven new members of the commission who take up their posts in January. The other Orangeman on the commission is DUP member Donald McKay, a member of the Portadown ex-servicemen's Orange Lodge.
Part of their function will be to engage with nationalist residents groups against Orange parades passing through their area.
"In my position, I am open and transparent," Mr Burrows told The Irish Times. "We will be open and therefore anyone who wishes to come along can."
Mr Burrows also suffered something of a baptism of fire when he went on BBC Radio Ulster's Talkback programme to explain his reasons for joining the commission, which the Grand Orange Lodge has consistently opposed. Several listeners rang in to decry him as a "Lundy" and a "traitor" to the Orange cause.
Sinn Féin's Alex Maskey also criticised the appointment of Mr Burrows who, he said, was to the forefront of attempts to force the "unwanted and unwelcome sectarian" Drumcree parade down the Garvaghy Road.
SDLP MLA Alex Attwood, who deplored the decision not to reappoint any of the current board, said if the British government thought a different approach to parading disputes would work, "they are wrong, and they will be proven wrong".
Mr Burrows said he had no idea whether the order would now seek to expel him, neither could he say whether as a commissioner he could join in the Drumcree parade next year.
The new chairman of the commission, former leading English trade unionist Roger Poole, said the organisation's remit was to talk itself "out of a job".
He said the membership represented a "broad spectrum of the people of Northern Ireland" and believed he could use his trade union experience to good effect.
The four other new members are: former SDLP MP for West Belfast Dr Joe Hendron; former Women's Coalition Assembly candidate and independent member of Belfast's district policing partnership Anne Monaghan; Vilma Patterson, who serves on the Independent Monitoring Board for Maghaberry Prison; and Alison Scott-McKinley, a lay magistrate and a former member of Magherafelt district policing partnership.
