Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton will boycott New York’s St Patrick’s Day Parade in protest of it’s ban on posters promoting LGBT groups.

Minister for Social Protection and Labour deputy leader Joan Burton said that she will not be attending the parade when she is in New York for the annual St. Patrick’s Day festivities next month.

She explained, “It’s a great, fun day, but to me it needs to be inclusive of the whole Irish cultural experience and the whole width and breadth and diversity of Irish people, and descendants of Irish people who have gone to the United States.”

Burton met members of the New York LGBT community when she attended the parade two years ago. At the time, she said that she felt there would be big changes in attitudes towards LGBT people in the near future. “My understanding then was that there was quite a positive feeling and that some change was in the air. Hopefully, that is actually going to come to pass,” she said.

“I think it’s such a great parade. Like the new mayor of New York has said, it should be for everyone. So I won’t be going to the parade until it is more fully inclusive of all the different Irish experiences.”

Burton’s decision comes after New York mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he would not attend the parade, also protesting the ban on the promotion of LGBT organisations.