Excerpt from a reply from

Sir Patrick Mayhew to Andrew Hunter MP

31 October 1994

The Secretariat was set up under the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 15 November 1985 to service
the Inter-Governmental Conference in the discharge of the Conference's functions as set out in
the Agreement. The staff on the British side of the Agreement are drawn from officials working
in the Northern Ireland Office and can include members of the Home Civil Service, the
Northern Ireland Civil Service and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Under the Agreement, the Conference is the framework within which the Irish Government
may, where the interests of the minority are significantly or especially affected, put forward
proposals for major legislation or on major policy issues of Northern Ireland Departments and
which remain the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. The Secretariat
is the channel of communication for these views and proposals and for contact between the
British and Irish Governments on other matters which fall within the scope of the Agreement.
Details of the exchanges between the two Governments remain confidential.**

With regard to the final point raised by ---------------, there is, of course, no "joint
administration" of Northern Ireland, secret or otherwise. Article 2 of the Agreement states
clearly that there is no derogation from the sovereignty of either the United Kingdom or the
Irish Government and that each retains responsibility for the decisions and administration of
government within its own jurisdiction.

Patrick

[** This means that a police action or policy change initiated by a politician or any other
person and processed through Iveagh House, Dublin, the Secretariat and the NIO cannot be
traced back to its source. In other words, a politician who is a member of the Policing Board
might claim publicly that the Police Board can provide accountable policing whilst at the same
time availing of the BIIC Joint Secretariat if he/she wants to arrange a police action privately
that cannot be scrutinised by Parliament, the Policing Board or the Police Ombudsman.]