Parades-row MLA nominated for policing board

An SDLP member at the centre of a row with the North's Parades Commission has been nominated to serve on the Policing Board, it emerged today.

SDLP Upper Bann Assembly member Dolores Kelly's name has been submitted by the party as one of its two nominees to the next board.

West Belfast MLA Alex Attwood, a current policing board member, has been re-nominated.

Ms Kelly has been at the centre of a row with the British government in the past week following the revelation that her name was used as a referee without her permission by an Orangeman who was appointed by Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain to the Parades Commission.

The SDLP Assembly member has called for the resignation of Portadown Orangeman Don MacKay, insisting that even if he had approached her, she would have refused to give him a reference because their position on parades was diametrically opposed.