Police Scotland decision won’t aid standing in Irish community

WHO would have thought that three decades after we all thought the issue was settled, the Garvaghy Road dispute would rear its ugly head again? However many would, far fewer would have thought Police Scotland would have a role to play in the crisis.

It is a bizarre situation, bewildering and infuriating. Once upon a time the RUC had the manpower and the will to simply put boots on the ground and crack heads to get the parade through. Thirty years on, in the face of the very people who put a stop to the nonsense first time around, their successors in the PSNI had to put a call across the North Channel for back up before they could think about attempting a police operation to enforce the highly contentious decision to approve the parade.

The mutual aid request, and its acceptance, begs many questions, but on a practical level adding Police Scotland to the mix, when Scotland has significant issues of its own around Orange Order parades, was madness.

How can the Irish community in Scotland, which has looked on as campaigners such as Call It Out have consistently challenged parades here, have any faith in a police service which was prepared to intervene to help facilitate an Orange parade down Garvaghy Road in 2026?

What is the Irish community expected to think when official minutes suggest that officers were volunteering for this task? Why should the Scottish public be fobbed off with bland comments from Police Scotland, which studiously ignore why their involvement here was so controversial for reasonable observers.

Common sense may have eventually prevailed in Portadown, but the lingering effects of this completely needless situation, and the entirely avoidable entry of Police Scotland onto the stage, will continue to impact the Irish community in Scotland.