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The Last Days of the Talks - Daily Telegraph, April 1998
At the end Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff, said that because of the range of issues and number of parties it was the most complex and difficult negotiation he had known. It also had a long history the structure having been established in the Brooke/Mayhew talks of 1991/2.
The final phase began two weeks ago when the Chairman, George Mitchell, whose patience and fairness won universal praise, began a bi-laterals with the parties to produce by Friday, 3 April, a draft paper for discussion, which would be the basis for the agreement. The Irish Government, however, preferred that week to do its serious talks on relations between any new administration in Belfast and Dublin (strand 2) in London rather than with us. These talks seemed to run into difficulty and George Mitchell had, late on Friday evening to abandon his target.
It was clear to us that the two most important issues were the nature of any north/south bodies and the way decisions would be made in any future Northern Ireland Assembly.
The former was the subject of the direct talks between the British and Irish governments that week. Sinn Fein wanted these bodies to be “free standing”, not subject to any control from any Northern Ireland Assembly, based on British and Irish legislation. Unionists saw this as the creation of an embryonic all Ireland government. It would run counter the principle of consent. Instead we insisted that any north/south body had to be consultative, discussing co-operation that would be within the mandate of and accountable to the Assembly.
I was told that the Irish could be persuaded to accept our model, but at a price. The Irish were reluctant to accept a purely voluntary model for fear that Unionist would then refuse to agree to any co-operative schemes. They wanted the Agreement to include a number of pre-cooked co-operation schemes which would be implemented by some all Ireland Quangos whose creation would not be in any way be subject to the Assembly.
My response was to say their fears were groundless. We had never been opposed to practical co-operation. However, we understood the Irish need for reassurance and were prepared to discuss ways in which we could enhance their confidence.
I did have a brief telephone conversation with Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach on Sunday 5 April, but my expectation that we might meet the next day was frustrated when his mother had a heart attack that night, dying early the next morning. I must pay tribute to Mr Ahern who, in the midst of such bereavement, put so much time and effort into the Talks.
That Sunday I talked twice on the phone to Tony Blair and explained to him the danger of pre-cooked agreements. How could people see that their consent was the key factor if their elected representatives in an Assembly were to be given no choice in their creation. I also raised other strand two problems. On Monday morning, the Prime Minister phoned and said that he saw the problem of bypassing the Assembly and that he now expected that the Mitchell draft would point up this and other problems.
But when the appeared it adopted the Irish position. Paragraph 7 of strand 2 said: “For the areas listed in annex C, where it is agreed that new implementation bodies are to be established, the two governments to make all necessary legislative and other preparations to ensure the establishment of these bodies at the inception of the agreement … such that these bodies function effectively as rapidly as possible.”
Annex C listed 8 bodies: annexes A and B also listed respectively 25 and 16 other areas for immediate cross border co-operation. Some of these were modest, but others included the harmonisation of further and higher education and general hospital services and the creation of all Ireland bodies to run trade and the arts. The paper also contained proposals on security policing and justice, which appeared to threaten the existence of the RUC, had never been discussed at any time in the talks.
On Tuesday morning I asked George Mitchell why the qualifications to strand 2 I had discussed with Tony Blair did not appear in his draft. He said that he was told by the Irish delegation at Stormont that the text had been agreed by both governments and could not be changed: an assertion from which the British representatives there appeared unable to dissent.
This why we sent a fax to Downing Street saying that that the paper was unacceptable and that before considering alternative proposals, we needed to know if both government were prepared to accept alternatives. At the same time Lord Alderdice the leader of the cross-community Alliance party was describing the Mitchell paper as a step backwards. Soon afterwards we learnt that the Prime Minister was coming to Belfast to take charge.
For me, the first breakthrough came that evening when Tony Blair told me that as soon as he had seen the Annexes that morning, he realised that the paper was in trouble: that Annexes A and B would have to go and para. 7 be rewritten. I responded that if the Irish also accepted the need for change we would be ready.
Because of his mother’s funeral, we could not start talks with the Irish Taoiseach until Wednesday evening. After several hours discussion we hit on a simple solution. The Assembly would in any event have a period after the June elections when it was in “shadow” form before the transfer of functions next year. That time could be used for the Assembly and the Dail to create a shadow North/South council which would consider areas for co-operation with the intention of launching them at the same time as the transfer of power to the Assembly. We wanted all elements of the solution, including the new British Isles wide Council, to move step by step. Paddy Teahon, the Irish cabinet secretary used the analogy of creating a string of pearls, where you thread each piece on one at a time, but they all come up together.
The session took at bad turn at the end when some persons with a more republican outlook joined. I had thought we could have wrapped up the issue, but had to end the session because the newcomers were threatening to derail the accord we were about to reach. We agreed to meet on Thursday, but in fact never did. Internal dissension within the Irish team prevented this and it required the personal intervention of Tony Blair to finalise the agreement on this issue.
Meanwhile discussions had been proceeding with the government on policing. We pointed out the danger of so-called community policing being used to put a uniform on the backs of the thugs who continue to terrorise their own ghettos. We hope that the modifications made to the policing section of the Agreement will prevent this happening and preserve intact the police force that is of the highest standards and is probably the most expert anti-terrorist force in the world.
On Thursday we met John Hume’s SDLP to see if we could sort out the procedures of the Assembly. Again, when we got to the key issues that evening, agreement came fairly easily. We had wanted a Committee style administration similar to local government, with major positions distributed among the parties in proportion to their strength. But we recognised this model’s weakness was in co-ordination. In previous meetings we had agreed that we need a hybrid, which combined executive departmental committees and proportionality with a co-ordinating committee.
That left decision making, where we had agreed that we could not return to decisions by a simple majority in all cases, but that there would have to be special procedures for key decisions. The procedures we agreed that night are cumbersome. They could lead to deadlock. It will need a lot of effort and not a little good will to make them work. But they protect unionists as well as nationalists. The SDLP also had a hankering for a cabinet system with full Ministerial titles, which we decided to indulge.
I mentioned to the SDLP our difficulties if proportionality offered a government position to Sinn Fein without them having shown that they have left terrorism behind and genuinely embraced the democratic process. We also discussed this with the government and expected that there would be provision to cover this in the final draft. That draft did not appear until midday on Friday. It did provide that those who do not use only democratic non-violent means should be excluded or removed from office and this was cross-referenced to decommissioning, which the agreement declared should now be completed within two years.
But we are concerned that this is too weak. The link between individuals and paramilitary organisations may be difficult to establish and the procedures for exclusion uncertain. It was this that caused our difficulties that afternoon. And for unionists this is now probably the key problem. We acknowledge that people can change. There are many examples of former terrorists who have changed. But we are entitled to insist that people show by their conduct that they have changed before they are admitted into the heart of the administration.
Late on Friday afternoon we received an assurance from Tony Blair that if it appears during the Assembly’s shadow period over the next six month that these provisions are indeed too weak he will support change, which may need to be legislative in character.
That assurance enabled us to decide to go ahead. It has also been crucial in obtaining our party executive’s backing for the agreement. It needs to work.
We will also have difficulties with people’s fears about policing and prisoner releases and government must be sensitive on these issues.
But a judgement has to be made on the whole agreement and here the positives outweight the problems. Despite Gerry Adams’ taunts we have risen from the table with the Union stronger than when we first sat. With his exception, the consent principle is accepted by nationalists, and will soon be enshrined in the fundamental law of the Irish Republic.
We also have the prospect of democratic accountability restored in a new Assembly in which the interests of all can be protected, and a unique consultative and co-operative structure, which will enable all the regions of the British Isles to reflect their social, political, cultural and economic interdependence.
This Agreement addresses the wounds, which have damaged our society, ensuring that our diverse traditions attract respect and, above all, laying the foundations for a healthy, vibrant democracy to replace the stagnation, frustration and powerlessness of the last three decades.
Whether it succeeds depends what happens in succeeding days, but like the talks it will not fail for want of effort on our part.
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