Transcript
Wednesday 8 April
The Prime Minister spoke to Trimble first thing to reassure him that we would be pressing Ahern for radical change. When Ahern arrived from Dublin for breakfast (before returning to Dublin for his mother’s funeral), the Prime Minister stressed that there would have to be radical change, particularly to the North-South Annexes, if there was to be a real hope of a deal. Ahern made clear in response that he and his team were ready to have a crack at amending the paper, in particular the North-South part. But he also stressed his own difficulties, and his fear that if one Unionist set of demands was met, another one would quickly appear.
Subsequent negotiation on the North-South text between Gallagher, Teahon, myself and Bill Jeffrey, while the Prime Minister went to Castle Buildings to meet other parties, showed that the Irish had indeed been shaken by the Unionist and other reaction and were ready to make significant changes. The infamous Annexes were deleted, and the text moved a considerable way towards Unionist concerns. The process therefore looked as if it might get back on track, although there was great concern on the nationalist side that the Unionists were refusing to engage on Strand 1 until their Strand 2 (North/South) concerns were sorted out.
Notes
- The ‘Prime Minister’ is the UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
- ‘Ahern’ is Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach (leader of the Government of Ireland).
- ‘Gallagher’ is Tommy Gallagher, an SDLP politician. The SDLP (the Social and Democratic Labour Party) was a Nationalist Party committed to democratic, peaceful methods.
- ‘Teahon’ is Paddy Teahon, a civil servant of the Irish Government.
- Bill Jeffrey was another British civil servant from the Northern Ireland Office.
- ‘Strand 1’ negotiations concerned the creation of democratic institutions in Northern Ireland (like the Northern Ireland Assembly which is elected by the people of Northern Ireland).
- ‘Strand 2’ negotiations concerned ‘North-South’ issues and the creation of cross-border organisations to support cooperation across the island of Ireland.