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.
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.
Conclusions of bilaterals with the DUP, Irish Officials, and the SDLP.
Membership (at session start):
John Alderdice, Jack Allen, Eileen Bell, Peter Bell, Mrs H Bradford, Gregory Campbell, John Chilcot, Seamus Close, Josias Cunningham, Stewart Dickson, Nigel Dodds, Jeffrey Donaldson, Reg Empey, Sean Farren, Frank Feely, David Fell, David Ferguson, William Fittall, David Ford, Tommy Gallagher, Hugh John Simpson Gibson, Jeremy Hanley, Denis Haughey, Joe Hendron, David Hill, Derek Hill, John Hume, Mervyn Jones, Chris Maccabe, Ken Maginnis, Paul Maguire, Séamus Mallon, Patrick Mayhew, Steve McBride, Donovan McClelland, James McClure, William McCrea, Philip McGarry, Chris McGimpsey, Eddie McGrady, Danny G McNeill, Jim Molyneaux, Addie Morrow, Seán Neeson, Jim Nicholson, Ian Paisley, Rhonda Paisley, Joseph Pilling, Alliance Representative, British Government Representative, DUP Representative, SDLP Representative, UUP Representative, Peter Robinson, Brid Rodgers, Rev Martin Smyth, Quentin Thomas, David Trimble, Denny Vitty, Sammy Wilson (60 total)
Representing 5 delegations:
Alliance, British Government , Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Ulster Unionist Party (UUP)
Imported Documents
Imported Amendments
Exported Documents
Exported Amendments
Resources (0):
Resource Collections (0):
None
Resource Items (0):
None
Summary of events in this session:
Individuals:
0 0 0 0
List of people joining the committee
List of people leaving the committee
List of people elected to a position
Documents:
0 0 0
List of proposals created
List of proposals amended
List of proposals copied
List of proposals imported
List of proposals to be voted on
List of proposals debated
Decisions:
List of proposals adopted
List of proposals rejected
List of proposals dropped
List of proposals referred
List of postpone debate voted on
List of other proposals voted on
Procedure:
List of procedural motion
List of motions debated
Icon key
Person joining a committee
Person leaving a committee
Person elected to a position
A new document introduced
An amendment proposed
A document introduced from another committee
A revision of another document begun
Amendment imported from another committee
Proposal Debated
Drop a proposal
Refer a proposal
Adopt a proposal
Other vote (continue debate)
Reject a proposal
Postpone debate on a proposal
Procedural motion introduced
Procedural Motion Debated
Procedural motion with sub-decisions