The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, has said that he believes all aspects of the Good Friday Agreement, including the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons, will be implemented. He was speaking after the first meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council concluded in Armagh. The meeting was attended by the entire Cabinet and eight members of the Northern Executive from Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP. The two DUP ministers, Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds, boycotted the meeting, saying they were opposed to any process which could lead to a united Ireland. Instead, they paid a visit to Markethill, a few miles away, to meet the victims of violence.
The new Council’s first job was to decide where the six cross-border implementation bodies were to be located. Food Safety will be in Cork with Trade and Business Development in Newry. The special EU Programmes Body will be split between Belfast, Omagh and Monaghan. The Irish Language agency will be based in Dublin and will have a regional office in Belfast, as will the body promoting Ulster Scots. Waterways will be based in Enniskillen and will have three regional offices in the Republic. Aquaculture and the Irish Lights Commission will have offices in Derry, Carlingford, Dublin and Dun Laoghaire. A tourism body has yet to be established. Ministers also agreed to work together in the areas of transport, agriculture, education, health, the environment and tourism.
The meeting lasted about two hours and afterwards the Taoiseach said that he believed that the cross-border bodies would operate to the mutual benefit of everyone on the islands. He added that he was more pleased about today's events than any other development since the start of the peace process. The work of the new bodies will begin immediately and the next full session of the Council will be held in Dublin in June of next year.
The North's First Minister, David Trimble, said that he was looking forward to a new era of co-operation, based on mutual respect. The North's Minister for Education, Martin McGuinness, described the meeting as truly historic. He said that Republicans were hopeful that the new North-South arrangements would eventually lead to the unification of Ireland.
