Mac Cionnaith, from the resident’s group, had also said that signatures are being collected from households from around the area in support of preventing the parade.

He said the signatures will be provided to the Parades Commission as evidence that the “vast majority of people” want the march re-routed.

“The commission, and those above them in government, must take good notice of this.”

The taoiseach has received correspondence from the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition seeking to meet Irish government officials.

Officials from the Irish government have since been in contact with the residents’ group and will continue to monitor the situation and this engagement in the coming days.

Portadown District said it had confirmed their readiness to commence the mediation process as a matter of urgency without any preconditions.

The Parades Commission said it “has appointed a mediation company to progress mediation in relation to the Drumcree parading dispute”.

“Both parties to the dispute were informed of this at the same time.”

DUP Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart said her party welcomes the idea of mediation.

“It is something that we have been asking for, for many years, and we welcome that the Orange Order are ready and willing to talk anywhere, any place and to anyone to get a resolution to this long running sore and this denial of rights over the past 28 years.”

Speaking to the Nolan Show, Lockhart said: “We want a re-balancing of rights, the Orange Order have put forward a very reasonable, proportionate, they have stretched themselves about what they have put on the table, and it is now about re-balancing rights.”

She added it is “utterly constitutionally inappropriate for the Irish prime minister to be anywhere near this issue, and I trust that he will see that he is being weaponised in this invitation”.

“I have reached out to our Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who has responsibility overall for parading in Northern Ireland, to remind the Irish government that they have absolutely no business in regulating parades in Northern Ireland.”