13.04.1998
4 Extracts from a report written by John Holmes, to Tony Blair on the final 72 days of negotiations – Friday 10 April (Part 1) Catalogue ref: PREM 49/412
Transcript
All now looked set for agreement, and the early morning of Good Friday was spent tidying up
texts for later circulation to the parties (most of whom had seen no new text since Monday and
knew little of what had been going on); and preparing words for use if and when agreement was
reached. Exhaustion was combined with a degree of satisfaction and optimism. But we were
also uncomfortably aware that there was bound to be a last minute obstacle, and that the UUP
would no doubt find reasons to dislike the texts when they saw them again.
Before they could even be circulated, a mini-crisis arose over the Annex listing the areas where
separate or joint North-South implementation bodies would be set up. The Irish had been
unhappy with the number of areas on this list (12), together with the fact that few of them were
what they wanted. They had pressed throughout for an Irish Language Promotion Body and a
Trade Promotion and Indigenous Company Development Body. The UUP had resisted both
fiercely, one on political grounds and the other because of competition worries.
The Irish claimed to have persuaded the UUP at some time during the night to accept both
We stupidly took their word for it. When the UUP saw the new list, they blew a fuse, accused
the Irish of duplicity and refused to accept any more than the original list. The Irish in turn dug in
their heels, and a lengthy impasse followed, with Mitchell
unable to circulate a new text and getting increasingly angry. We were also tearing our hair out.
Eventually, the Prime Minister brought Ahern and Trimble together again. Trimble had been
given fierce instructions by his colleagues not to accept another body, or not to bother coming
back. He was adamant. Ahern pressed but in was persuaded to propose again vain. Eventually
Trimble, was persuaded to propose again a pretty meaningless health body. We sold this to
an unhappy Ahern on the basis of an additional reference in the text to other bodies being
considered, and an exchange of letters with Trimble where Ahern set out four Irish requests
again, and Trimble agreed to consider them later.
This fudge allowed the text to be circulated around midday. We sat back and waited for the next
problems. They were not long in arriving but were worse than we had anticipated. First the UUP
insisted that the Anglo-Irish Secretariat at Maryfield be closed by the end of the year. But the
Irish were resistant to further concessions to the UUP. Then the Unionists wanted to change the
wording on decommissioning. We told them it was impossible.
But it quickly became clear that Trimble’s troops were in general revolt, particularly his young
staffers, but also major figures like Donaldson. Faced with the prospect of selling to their
community a deal involving Sinn Fein at the Assembly and Government table with no guarantee
of decommissioning, with all prisoners out in two years, at least severe doubts about the future
of the RUC, a new relationship with Dublin, and a nationalist hold on major Assembly decisions,
they were losing their nerve. The precise cause varied over the hours. First, it was prisoners.
We provided written comfort on how the scheme would work. Then it was policing. Then it was
decommissioning.
The Prime Minister spoke to Trimble several times on the phone. He wrote to Trimble unilaterally
agreeing that Maryfield would close by the end of the year. We enlisted David Montgomery. We
deployed the big picture arguments we could. But Trimble still seemed to be losing the argument
(and to share most of his colleagues’ reservation). It began to look hopeless, and despair took
hold.