Quill
  1. Negotiations
  2. Resource Collections
  3. Writing Peace: George J. Mitchell Collection
  4. Record of informal discussion on procedural guidelines and agenda for plenary session on 27 June 1996 at 11.10

Resource Collections

Image - Resources

Writing Peace: George J. Mitchell Collection

Record of informal discussion on procedural guidelines and agenda for plenary session on 27 June 1996 at 11.10

Monday, 01 July 1996

i24754

This document contains the summary record of the informal discussion on procedural guidelines and the agenda for the plenary session that took place on 27 June 1996. The Chairman began by raising issues with scheduling and also inquiring whether the information supplied by the participants should be made available to the others. The Chairman also proposed revisiting paragraph 27 of the rules of procedure, as he had received an appeal from the UKUP regarding the requisite standard of consensus. Peter Robinson said that DUP was willing to rescind its objection to paragraph 12, and was also willing to agree to paragraph 26, albeit with a small amendment. The delegates agreed to the amended text, and both paragraphs were approved. Robert McCartney had previously circulated a proposed amendment regarding paragraph 27 and began a discussion on an additional test on the overall conclusion of the talks. Quentin Thomas asked whether it was right to withold a conclusion of the talks which had passed the first three tests of sufficient consensus if it did not pass this additional test, and Peter Weir and Seamus Mallon commented on the difficulty posed by the ambiguous wording of the amendment. Thomas pointed out that all three tests, although insufficient on their own, had to be applied together to proposals for them to acquire sufficient consensus. He also noted that Robinson's amendment to paragraph 26 meant that the political test proposed by McCartney would apply thoughout the talks. Mark Durkan noted that sufficient consensus was a last resort device and argued that the participants would not be able to form the words to give effect to McCartney's proposal without hindering the process. Bronagh Hinds agreed with the SDLP but also indicated that McCartney's point about the need to secure a wider community-oriented consensus was important. McCartney also noted that the current rule 27 could lead to a situation where proposals were accepted at the talks but parties were forced to campaign against it in a subsequent referendum. Sean O'hUiggin recommended addressing this issue in the plenary. On a point raised by Robinson, the Chairman asked Alliance, Labour and NIWC to inform him of their understanding of their position on whether they considered themselves "nationalist" or "unionist". The Chairman also noted that it seemed unlikely that the delegates would arrive at a decision, and after promising to consider the matter himself, he adjourned the meeting at 13.30.

Download File (format is: "application/pdf")
Writing Peace: George J. Mitchell Collection

(To go a specific resource item, please click on its link.)

Your Browser does not seem to allow embedded PDFs, but you can download the PDF instead.