Centre for International Borders Research Papers produced as part of the project Mapping frontiers, plotting pathways: routes to North-South cooperation in a divided island THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NORTH/SOUTH MINISTERIAL COUNCIL AND THE NORTH-SOUTH BODIES Tim O’Connor Project supported by the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation and administered by the Higher Education Authority, 2004-06 ANCILLARY PAPER 5 THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NORTH/SOUTH MINISTERIAL COUNCIL AND THE NORTH-SOUTH BODIES Tim O’Connor MFPP Ancillary Papers No. 5, 2005 (also printed as IBIS working paper no. 51) © the author, 2005 Mapping Frontiers, Plotting Pathways Ancillary Paper No. 5, 2005 (also printed as IBIS working paper no. 51) Institute for British-Irish Studies Institute of Governance Geary Institute for the Social Sciences Centre for International Borders Research University College Dublin Queen’s University Belfast ISSN 1649-0304 ABSTRACT BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NORTH/SOUTH MINISTERIAL Tim O’Connor is Joint Secretary of the North/South Ministerial Council, Armagh. A COUNCIL AND THE NORTH-SOUTH BODIES graduate of St Patrick’s College Maynooth, he served in the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, including postings in Bonn and Washington, and terms as Director This paper sets out the background to the new North-South institutional architecture of the Africa Section, Director of Human Rights Unit, and Deputy Secretary General contained in the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement—the negotiations themselves and of the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation (1994-96). He was part of the Irish Gov- the outcome. Given that much of the detail remained to be further worked out after ernment delegation in the negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement. Good Friday, it recounts the talks held in the Autumn of 1998 and in early 1999, culminating in the agreement between the two governments establishing the imple- mentation bodies, signed in Dublin Castle on 8 March 1999. The paper outlines the main elements of that agreement, including the nature of the functions and structure of each of the implementation bodies, together with the common arrangements that were to apply all of them. Publication information Paper presented at the conference on “Implementing the agreement: the North- South bodies five years on” organised by the Institute for British-Irish Studies as part of the Mapping frontiers, plotting pathways programme, University Industry Centre, University College Dublin, 27 May 2005. MFPP ANCILLARY PAPERS NO. 5, 2005 Good Friday Agreement. But before doing that, we do need to give ourselves a very THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE NORTH/SOUTH MINISTERIAL quick reminder of the background to the issue of North-South relations during the years since partition. COUNCIL AND THE NORTH-SOUTH BODIES Tim O’Connor I heard John Coakley and his colleague, Dr Liam O’Dowd, recently describe the pe- riod 1925-65 as the Cold War years in terms of relations between the two parts of the island (Coakley and O’Dowd, 2004). I thought that that was a graphic phrase and a timely reminder of the reality from which we have come. There was brief thaw INTRODUCTION in the mid-1960s with the O’Neill-Lemass dialogue, but things quickly iced over again some years later with the onset of the Troubles. The Taoiseach has recently made clear the importance and priority the Irish Gov- ernment attaches to North-South cooperation and to the work of the North-South The first serious attempt to negotiate an end to the Troubles came in the Autumn of bodies (Ahern, B, 2005). He himself played a strongly instrumental role in the nego- 1973 with the Sunningdale talks. Although they led to agreement initially and the tiation of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which provides the framework basis setting up of the power-sharing executive in January 1974, by May 1974 all had col- for the bodies, and subsequently also in the Agreement between the British and lapsed again. It is as well to remind ourselves that a large part of the reason for the Irish governments of March 1999 establishing the bodies. collapse of Sunningdale was disagreement on the North-South axis and the failure to be able implement the Council of Ireland element of the agreement. My job in this paper is to outline in a little more detail what those agreements con- tain in terms of the North/South Ministerial Council and the bodies and I begin by In the ensuing years, when under the direction of the two governments, various at- sketching out my own locus in all of this. Prior to becoming Southern Joint Secretary tempts were made to reach a new agreement, the North-South dimension was al- of the NSMC on its inception on 2 December 1999, I was part of the Irish Govern- ways a central—and difficult—item of the negotiations. ment back-room team working in support of the Taoiseach and the Irish Govern- ment ministerial team involved in the talks which led to the Belfast/Good Friday In November 1985, when agreement was reached by the two governments without Agreement of 10 April 1998 and the Agreement establishing the implementation the involvement of the parties, again North-South relations received prominence bodies of 8 March 1999. and in the shape of the new Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference (AIIGC). Un- der the umbrella of the AIIGC, ministers from the South and the Northern Ireland Of- Given the need to respect the integrity of the negotiations, it would not be appropri- fice could discuss cross-border cooperation on issues such as agriculture, tourism ate for me to speak in detail about how the various outcomes came to be, and I will and so on. No new cross border bodies were established, however, along the lines be confining myself to broad outline terms in that regard. Within those constraints, I of what was to emerge out of the Good Friday Agreement. do hope that that outline will be of some value and interest to those seeking a better understanding of the North-South arrangements that emerged from these agree- We may fast-forward to the 1994 ceasefires, which were followed by a process ments. I also acknowledge that that the perspective I am giving is that of the Irish aimed at getting new negotiations underway between the governments and the par- Government position; no doubt others involved from other delegations might have a ties. By Autumn of 1997, conditions were set to enable broad-based negotiations to different recall or have a different perception of the same issue. No doubt the princi- get underway, under the chairmanship of Senator George Mitchell and his co- ples of academic openness will allow for a broad canvas in that regard. chairs, Prime Minister Holkeri and General de Chastelain. Finally, in terms of my opening comments, I will take the story to the coming into I joined the Irish Government talks delegation at that time and worked in the back- force of the North-South institutions on 2 December 1999 and my colleague Dr Pe- room team under the direction of officials such as Dermot Gallagher, Paddy Tea- ter Smyth will discuss later developments (see Smyth, 2005). hon, Tim Dalton and Martin Mansergh in support of the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, David Andrews, the Minister for Justice John O’Donoghue, and Min- ister of State Liz O’Donnell, who constituted the Irish ministerial team. THE HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL CONTEXT Like many elements of Irish history, picking the point at where you begin the story of THE TALKS: THE NORTH-SOUTH DIMENSION North-South relations on the island is in itself a tricky enough proposition. Do you measure it in hundreds of years or in decades? I will opt for a relatively recent time- If you checked any newspaper analysis in the Autumn of 1997 as to what the major line—essentially the Autumn of 1997, when full-scale negotiations began in Castle sticking points facing the negotiators in Castle Buildings were, you would find North- Buildings at Stormont on what was to lead some months later to the signing of the South cooperation right up there with consent, power-sharing, arms, policing, pris- oners and so on. The reality is that eight years later this is no longer the case and, MFPP ANCILLARY PAPER NO. 5 -2- O’Connor / Establishment of North/South Ministerial Council MFPP ANCILLARY PAPERS NO. 5, 2005 while sensitivities and complexities remain in certain respects, the concept of North- • What should be the number of the bodies and what areas should they cover? South cooperation to mutual benefit has attracted increasing consensus across the board. Understandably, there was a real haggle about these issues with the Nationalist side arguing for a larger number and the Unionist side a smaller one. I hope that it can be made clear why this is so. But without question, a big part of the reason had to do with the terms and architecture for a new beginning to North- It is important to remind ourselves that the talks were taking place in a difficult at- South relations that were agreed on Good Friday 1998—and, of course, how those mosphere, where trust between the parties was not strong, where there was little or terms and that architecture have been implemented since then. no experience of people having worked together on these issues. Moreover, the wider expectation in the media and among the public was that the talks were not go- I will say a brief word about how the talks were structured. A broad agenda was ing so succeed. Indeed, on the Monday before Good Friday one poll suggested that agreed by the chairman, Senator George Mitchell, and his fellow-chairs with the over 90% of the people of Northern Ireland expected the talks to fail.