Extracts from a letter between the UK Prime Minister’s Office and the Northern Ireland Office.

Transcript

10 DOWNING STREET

LONDON SW1A 2AA

29 October 1998

PS/SCSBAL

PS/Mr Murphy Bal

PS/ Mr Ingram BAL

PS/All Bas

PS/Mr Semple  Mr Hill

Mar Watkins

Mr Jeffrey

Mr McCabe

Mr Leach

Mr Walker

Mr Scholfield

Mr Bell

Dear Nick

ALL PARTY MEETINGS, 29 OCTOBER:

TRIMBLE’S VIEWS

When I spoke with Trimble about the LVF, I took the opportunity to ask him about today’s meetings. Trimble confirmed that the morning session on departmental structures had gone well, and had resulted in a focussed discussion. Eleven key points of difficulty had been identified, but many of them were simply a question of making decisions.

In contrast, the afternoon session had been messy. Many of those around the table did not understand the distinction between areas of cooperation and implementation bodies. They had wanted to transfer functions to implementation bodies, and retain them at the same time. Part of the problem had been that. perhaps because of the presence of Sinn Fein, the SDLP had raised their sights. This did not make things any easier. So the meeting had been unsatisfactory. They had ended up with a list of areas where more technical work was needed.

Trimble said that he hoped that they could have a more focussed meeting on Monday involving the UUP, SDLP, Irish and British. I said that I did not think the Irish and the SDLP would be keen on this format, because of their desire to be inclusive. Trimble claimed to be unaware of this difficulty. He was willing to make some side arrangement to keep Sinn Fein involved but he could not attend a meeting with them but without the DUP. He added that, when he had spoken to Ahern earlier in the week, Ahem had focussed on training and the Irish language, and had acknowledged that economic development was difficult for Trimble. Ahern had also promised to send a full list of possible implementation bodies, but this had not yet turned up. Finally, Trimble said that he had had discussions at the beginning of the day with Mallon. They had agreed that they should try to reach a private conclusion on the implementation bodies, but park this. They would say in public that they had not yet sorted this out, but were confident they could do so quickly, and use this to put pressure on Sinn Fein.

2

Comment

We clearly need to work hard on Trimble to take a more positive line on North/South, and get across that the quadripartite meeting be has in mind poses huge difficulties for the Irish and the SDLP, if Sinn Fein are not there. I will try to get the Prime Minister to speak to him about this, probably over the weekend, and to encourage further all party meetings on North/South issues, or at least some alternative process to the same effect.