I welcome our visitors in the Gallery who are campaigning for children with additional needs. I want to pay tribute to Miriam Lord in the Press Gallery. She has contributed to the gaiety of the nation significantly and many of us will miss her column on Saturdays, even when we were sometimes the brunt of it. Her witty and sometimes barbed words were always a treat to read. I thank her for all she did.

Last Thursday in Dublin, I met with residents of the Garvaghy Road. From them, I heard directly of their distress at the prospect of the Portadown Orange Order marching down the road they call home. Now, their fears are being realised. The grant of permission last Friday by the Parades Commission has reopened seriously deep wounds. We can all be clear that none of this about infringing on anyone’s traditions. More than 90% of marches in the North have proceeded without issue. The reason this march has been, rightly, curtailed for nearly 30 years is the enormous horror it causes for a community that has grappled for decades with a legacy of violence linked to so many killings. We think of Michael McGoldrick, the young Quinn brothers, Rosemary Nelson, Constable Frank O’Reilly and more.

We cannot afford a return to that dark past and those grim days of the 1990s. Granting permission for the parade was reckless, irresponsible and wrong with no material change in the circumstances that had led to the march being refused on previous occasions.

The Taoiseach has said that he wants to see calm restored, and I think we all agree with that. It seems today that an international mediator may be appointed to intervene in the dispute. The Taoiseach said that the Government remains in contact with the Executive, the British Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, Chris Bryant. That is important. Indeed, I appealed to the British Government to remain closely engaged when I spoke at the British Labour Party conference in Liverpool yesterday. However, it is a failure of Northern Ireland’s political system that the situation remains so tense and volatile today. Clearly, residents may well feel that the institutions set up to protect peace have abandoned them. We must not abandon them. As co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, the Government has a role in restoring trust. We know that there are sinister actors who want to see mediation fail, and want to exploit the dysfunction in power-sharing and devolution to bring down the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. We cannot allow them to win. Proactive steps must be taken to restore trust and calm, as the SDLP has said.

Has the Taoiseach asked the PSNI why it told the Parades Commission that the Drumcree parade could safely take place, as it clearly could not? Will he use all diplomatic channels to ensure that the people of the Garvaghy Road are not subjected to further trauma and to ensure that the march does not take place? If mediation fails, will he call on the Secretary of State to exercise his powers to prohibit a parade under section 11 of the public processions Act 1998?

I thank the Deputy for raising this. I say to her, again, that I concur that nobody wants to go back to the terror and trauma of what transpired over 28 years ago during that particular period. As I said earlier, I found the events of the past weekend deeply depressing. I think we have to focus on the next steps on how we mediate our way through this.

I have given my views on the decision. I am not going to attempt to take the House through that or indeed through whatever rationale the Parades Commission itself has given. We need to be careful of placing responsibility on the PSNI, in terms of that decision. I think the PSNI will say there were caveats to that, but I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the PSNI. Jon Boutcher, the Chief Constable, had one singular clear objective. I think he used the phrase that he did not want one hair on one head hurt or injured. His overarching priority after the court's decision and so on was to try to protect human life and that is important. I think we should be clear about supporting the PSNI on that objective and avoiding any action that would precipitate injury or harm to people. I make that point.

The Parades Commission has made its decision. I am clear that I find it difficult to comprehend. I believe that it was the wrong decision. From our perspective, if you look at the 28 years, it is difficult to understand why this year it was allowed. Even if we go through the very manner in which it was allowed, it seems to suggest to me that there are clear issues, if only 35 are being allowed, etc. However, we need to focus on how we can bring all the different dimensions to this together or how we can have a conversation and develop a conversation between the communities involved to try to resolve this once and for all, or to get a pathway to a resolution of this.

I listened to Chris Nelson, the son of Rosemary Nelson, this morning. He articulated the immense trauma that he endured as a result of the murder of his mother. He also said this morning that we must think of the children of this community above and beyond everything else. We just must do everything collectively that we possibly can to avoid any harm or any enduring trauma for the younger generation of the community in Drumcree and particularly along the Garvaghy Road. That has to be our singular objective. We now need to concentrate on how we get a resolution to this, which will not be easy. We have to move beyond the fact that decisions have been taken.

The courts are independent, by the way. I want to be very clear about that. If we can engage with the parties involved, hopefully, we can find a way forward.

What was particularly impressive about the calm dignity of the Garvaghy Road residents when we met them last Thursday was their concern for a younger generation and to ensure that the dark days of the past would not be repeated for a generation of people who had happily grown up under peace and the Good Friday Agreement. That is why this is now so grim. I agree with and welcome the Taoiseach's strongly worded views on the decision of the Parades Commission. We all share his view that it was an unacceptable and incomprehensible decision. Of course, the most important thing now is to ensure that nobody is injured, or worse, but the longer uncertainty prevails and the longer the standoff continues, the worse the risk for Garvaghy Road residents, the younger generation and all of those who we had hoped would never experience those horrors again in their lifetime.

What we would like to know, from the Opposition side, both the Labour Party and our sister party, the SDLP, is what that pathway the Taoiseach speaks of is. When will the mediator be appointed? Can we see a way to appoint a mediator as soon as possible? If not, then why are we not talking about section 11, which is part of the architecture of the Good Friday Agreement? The power of the Secretary of State to prohibit a parade without any veto from the PSNI or the commission is there in the 1998 legislation. There can be an enabling consultation but no right of veto. The Secretary of State must be prepared to utilise that power rather than run the risk of violence on the Garvaghy Road.

I just want to acknowledge the presence of Every Child Matters and the presence of children with additional needs. They are very welcome to the House. Hopefully, I will get a chance to say hello to them later.

The Minister for foreign affairs, Deputy McEntee, has been in constant contact all weekend with various parties and with the Northern Ireland Secretary of State. I have been in contact with the British Prime Minister. We are well aware of the legislative framework governing actions that the Northern Ireland Secretary of State can or could take but the context has to be one where whatever decisions are taken ensure a pathway towards trust and reconciliation between both communities on the ground. Otherwise, decisions can get subject to subsequent legal actions as well, as we saw. The contact will continue. It is fair to say that a consensus has not emerged, clearly, in terms of a pathway forward. People are mindful of the different perspectives and stances that people have on this current situation. We may regret - I certainly do - that because of the decision, we find ourselves in this position but our collective objective now has to be to find a way out of it that avoids the terrible trauma we witnessed in the past. It would be a singular failure of progress in Northern Ireland if we were to witness something similar to that now.