An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Nessa Cosgrove (LAB), Labour Panel

I also want to speak about the Garvaghy Road. I lived and worked up North and many of my friends lived and worked around the Garvaghy Road. They lived around Portadown and were traumatised back in the late 1990s, and are still traumatised by the horrific and brutal violence that surrounded the Orange marches around that time. The community of the Garvaghy Road has the right to live free from sectarian violence and domination. They do not want to be sucked back in to polarisation and division. It is a violation of their right to live peacefully. Like Senator Murphy said, over 90% of parades go unrestricted and the organisers of this Orange march know there are loads of other routes that have been identified which they could use.
The organisers of this march have used – it has to be called out – inflammatory language, such as “staging post”, “culture wars” and “unfinished business”. It looks like a deliberate act of provocation. Why is this happening? What is the end game? Is it because there has been some more talk about a united Ireland, or the fact that there are elections coming up in May? Communities have been dragged back into this. The Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition has called for international mediation and an international moderator.
I agree that it is up to the PSNI, and questions must also be asked about the Parades Commission. How was this allowed to happen in the first place? Maybe the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Chris Bryant, needs to intervene and overturn the decision. No one wants to see the destabilisation of Stormont. People are still living and suffering through the cost-of-living and housing crises. This talk about institutions breaking down cannot be happening. It is a one-sided and very much uneven playing field here. That needs to be called out. I would welcome anything we can do in this House to ensure this is supported from us down here in the South.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-29