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Stormont
Buildings, the seat of government in Northern Ireland |
Under
Strand Two of the Good Friday Agreement provision was made for a North-South
Ministerial Council (NSMC) to be set up under a new British-Irish Agreement.
This Council, or the "Irish dimension", was the institution
that persuaded the nationalist/republican community to support the Agreement.
The
NSMC brings together those with executive responsibilities in Belfast
and Dublin "to develop consultation, co-operation and action within
the island of Ireland" on matters of mutual interest. Each delegation
in the Council is accountable to the Assembly and the Dublin parliament
or Oireachtas respectively and ministers will require the approval of
their parliaments for decisions that go beyond their "defined authority".
The
Agreement stipulates that the North-South Council and the Assembly are
"mutually interdependent" and "one cannot successfully
function without the other". There is, therefore, no incentive for
unionists to undermine the Council or nationalists the Assembly.
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Secretary
of State Mo Mowlam and Irish Foreign Affairs Minister David Andrews
sign the treaties regulating the North-South Ministerial Council,
8 March 1999 |
To
ensure the Council would be up and running by the time power was devolved
to the Assembly, the Agreement made provision for representatives of the
"Northern Ireland transitional administration" and the Irish
government, in co-operation with the British government, to identify "at
least 12 subject areas" for North-South co-operation. Existing bodies
in each jurisdiction would be the mechanism for co-operation in "at
least six matters" while co-operation in six other matters would
take place through "agreed implementation bodies". Agreement
on these issues should have been reached by 31 October 1998 but unionist
difficulties with decommissioning delayed the decision until 18 December
1998.
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treaties regulating the North-South Ministerial Council and the implementation
bodies in the Strand Two section of the Good Friday Agreement were signed in
Dublin on 8 March 1999 but only took effect when power was eventually devolved
to the Assembly at midnight on 1 December 1999. The DUP boycotted the inaugural
meeting which took place in Armagh on 13 December 1999.
The
six cross-border bodies responsible for implementing decisions on an all-island
basis are:
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inland
waterways, |
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food
safety, |
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trade
and business development, |
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special
EU programmes, |
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the
Irish and Ulster Scots languages, and |
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agricultural
and marine matters. |
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was also agreement on six other areas for co-operation that include aspects
of transport, agriculture, education, health, the environment and in the
case of tourism, a joint North-South public company is to be established. |
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