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  1. Overview: Northern Ireland Brooke/Mayhew Talks 1991-1992
  2. Full Record: Northern Ireland Brooke/Mayhew Talks 1991-1992
  3. Committee:British-Alliance Talks
  4. Session: 1991-05-22 14:03:00
  5. Event type: CREATE

Northern Ireland Brooke/Mayhew Talks 1991-1992

WORK IN PROGRESS - IN THE FINAL STAGES OF EDITING A series of talks launched by Peter Brooke, Secretary of State for Northern in Ireland, which began in April 1991, and were carried on intermittently by Brooke and his successor, Patrick Mayhew, until November 1992.

British-Alliance Talks

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Document introduced in:

Session 12686: 1991-05-22 14:03:00

Bilateral meeting between the Government and Alliance delegations to discuss the venue and chairman for Strand 2.

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Conclusions of the Meeting with the Alliance Delegation on 22 May 1403

There are 0 proposed amendments related to this document on which decisions have not been taken.

Conclusions of the Meeting with the Alliance Delegation on 22 May 1403

Venue for substantive meetings of Strand 2

Strand 2 should be held in Parliament Buildings.

Role of the Chairman

The Alliance Party said that they saw the role of the chairman to be that of a facilitator rather than that of an arbitrator or a decision-maker, though they recognised that there would be occasions when, having done his best to produce a meeting of minds, he would need to put forward his own proposals for the resolution of an issue based on his best assessment of the positions of the various participants. They recommended that whoever was chosen should be a native English speaker or at least fluent in English.

The machinery for dialogue between the chairman and the participants on the handling of business

The business decisions of the second strand might be handled by a business committee on which all the delegations would be represented; it might be helpful if the committee did not include the heads of the delegations.

The staff the Chairman might require

The Secretary of State should make what arrangements he considered necessary.

The Standing Orders/Rules of Procedure under which the chairman would operate

Standing orders should provide sufficient structure to ensure that the proceedings were orderly but leave as much room for flexibility as possible.

It was agreed:

- that the Chairman should have the power to convene, postpone and adjourn the meetings;

- that everyone should be appreciative of the time constraints under which they were working;

- that it should be possible to have bilaterals and sub-plenary working groups as well as full plenary meetings, and while these could take place anywhere, this should not lead to an unnecessary amount of time being wasted on travel;

- that a rule of confidentiality might not be feasible but that the Chairman should be advised to be extraordinarily careful in what he said;

- that Minutes should be kept.

Decisions yet to be taken

None

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