- Event type: CREATE_FROM
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.
Office of the Strand 1 Chairman (British Government Delegation)
In order to adequately reflect the role of the Chairman and his staff in re-drafting documents and controlling the flow of information during bilateral negotiations, we are representing them as a separate committee. In contrast to other Quill negotiations, in these Talks much of the actual work of negotiation and making proposals took place in bilateral meetings between the Chairman and the party delegations. The minutes of these sessions have been preserved in the same format as the minutes of the plenary sessions, and the sessions are modelled from the minutes as separate Committees (British Government/Alliance Bilaterals, etc.). The Chairman would move between these meetings, reporting on the positions of the other delegations and trying to reach accommodation. It is beyond the scope of the current project to model all the internal government meetings which took place during the Talks (although documentation for at least some of them exists in the National Archives), but we can draw on evidence within the sources we are using to show that proposals and agendas for the bilaterals were agreed within the Government team. For example, in a particular round of meetings, the Chairman will open the meeting with a near-identical agenda and summary of the current position of the other parties. To adequately model the fact that the flow of ideas between the delegations was filtered by the Chairman in this way, we have set up a committee called the 'Office of the Chairman' to show the conclusions of each bilateral discussion passing through the Chairman's Office and being redrafted before being passed on to the next delegation.
To see the full record of a committee, click on the corresponding committee on the map below.
Session 13114: 1992-10-23 17:05:00
Conclusions of bilaterals with the DUP, Irish Officials, and the SDLP.
Document View:
Debrief of Meeting with Irish Officials 23 October 1992
- Irish Ministers had been pleasantly surprised by their bilaterals with the UUP yesterday and this morning. In particular it seemed to the Irish that the UUP were willing to go further on executive authority for North/South institutions than HMG. The Secretary of State and Mr Hanley explained to the Irish that we had no hang ups about executive authority; our objection had simply been that it would have been counterproductive to be prescriptive in a Strand III document about what should emerge from Strand II. It had been clear that the Irish still suspected that HMG was reticent over executive authority. Our Ministers attempted to disabuse them of this. Their suspicions of us had been increased by the fact that the UUP had given them a two page paper on executive authority which they said had not been shown to us;
- Mr Flynn had shown unequivocal hostility to Mr Hume's ideas on security: "I don't even want to discuss it" had been his repeated litany when Mr Molloy had attempted to touch on the subject;
- The Irish had reaffirmed their need for constitutional balance if they were to put the amendment of Articles 2 and 3 to the Irish people. The Secretary of State had pressed them successfully to reflect further on what specifically they wanted. He had resisted suggestions that we should attempt a draft: it was for them to suggest what they thought would be necessary in order to persuade the Irish people;
- The Irish had suggested that they would not have a Ministerial presence in Belfast on Wednesday because of questions in the Dail though since, so far as we knew, questions were only to the Tanaiste it was not entirely clear why other Irish Ministers could not be present.
Decisions yet to be taken
- Debrief of Meeting with Irish Officials 23 October 1992 (introduced on 1992-10-23 17:05:00 - CREATE_FROM - e848298) [This document]
Document Timeline
- Debrief of Meeting with Irish Officials 23 October 1992 (introduced on 1992-10-23 17:05:00 - CREATE_FROM - e848298) [This document] [view current proposal at this moment]