13.04.1998
6 extracts from a report written by John Holmes, to Tony Blair on the final 72 days of negotiations – Wednesday 8 April, 1998, Catalogue ref, PREM 49/412
Transcript
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.
This was followed by a difficult meeting with the UUP team. Empey was particularly insistent
that, unless the Irish were prepared to consider radical change, not only in strand 2, the process
was going nowhere. Unionist annoyance with hardline Irish public statements in previous
days was very clear. The Prime Minister underlined the need to meet the Irish fear that there
would never be any North-South implementation bodies because of Unionist sabotage. Trimble
suggested (for the first but not last time) that the Irish actually wanted to damage the UUP
politically, but that the UUP were nevertheless ready to talk to the Irish if they were ready to
make serious change. Maginnis stressed UUP difficulties over policing, decommissioning and
security. It was left that we would talk to the Irish again about the text. (By prior agreement with
the Irish, we did not give the UUP the new Strand 2 text at this stage for fear of simply triggering
further Unionist demands).
A frustrating period followed, with no real negotiation underway on the key fronts. Ahern did not
get back from Dublin until the early evening. Until he had approved the Strand 2 text negotiated
earlier, so that we could prove to the Unionists that the Irish really were up for serious change,
the process was effectively stuck. When he eventually did arrive for a bilateral with the Prime
Minister, the initial atmosphere was chilly, because the Irish mistakenly thought we had been
trying to negotiate with Mitchell behind their back over policing and decommissioning. Apologies
from the Prime Minister quickly restored relations, and Ahern confirmed he was ready to sign up
to the paper on Strand 2, contingent on the Unionists being ready to do a reasonable deal on
other issues, notably Strand 1.
This was followed by a crucial tripartite meeting with the Unionists. Ahern made clear he was
ready to make compromises. Trimble appreciated Ahern’s return to Belfast from his mother’s
funeral and suggested both sides’ political needs could be met. In a critical intervention, Taylor
said he thought that proper business could now be done. It was therefore agreed that the UUP
and Irish should meet bilaterally to try to reach agreement on North/South. We subsequently
gave the UUP the new text, suggesting that we thought the Irish would be ready to sign up to it.
The UUP and Irish eventually met late that evening, for a long and evidently tense discussion.
It did not focus on the new text, as we had hoped, but on the difficult issues, in particular the
Irish need for guarantees about the establishment of North-South implementation bodies
and preference for Westminster legislation, and the UUP reluctance to contemplate anything
“pre-cooked”, before the Assembly could take a view. It was agreed that both sides would go
away overnight to draft words to reflect their respective ideas. Some of the Irish side seemed
encouraged by the meeting, but Ahern himself commented that it had finished just in time,
before blows were exchanged. Andrews and Liz O’Donnell in particular had clearly taken a
negative line – a problem which was to plague us further in the next 24 hours.
The Prime Minister was furious that the Irish and UUP had not been prepared to stay up all night
to sort out the problems and agree a text. He feared that the delay would make things worse —
a fear which proved amply justified the following morning. But Ahern was clearly too tired for an
all-night session to be possible.
The end of the evening was marked by Gerry Adams wandering in to see the Prime Minister
on his own. He was friendly and philosophical, as always, but his underlying message was
worrying: Sinn Fein wanted to sign up to a deal, but we had to give them a deal they could
sign up to — and this had to involve more than just prisoner release. The Prime Minister took
the opportunity to ask Hume and Mallon immediately afterwards whether he thought Sinn Fein
would sign up. They thought Adams genuinely wanted to. But this question was to be a constant
preoccupation for the next 36 hours.
We eventually returned to Hillsborough after midnight, frustrated that so little progress had been
made during the day. We had arranged to meet Ahern again for breakfast the following morning.