Trimble on Bertie Ahern: Former first minister David Trimble speaks his mind about the peace process in a new book by Frank Millar. Below are edited extracts
'I had on one occasion [ in the mid-1990s] agreed to meet all the opposition parties in Dublin. That meant meeting Bertie Ahern for the first time.
"It was a very surreal meeting. I think there were three of us and we met a panel of three from Fianna Fáil, one of whom was Mary O'Rourke, who sat and glowered and never said a word the whole meeting. Just sat and glowered at us. Now it may have been just our oversensitivity but I really had the feeling that she had difficulty with us being in the same room. As I say, that may be just a question of our perception.
"Mr Ahern had been given a brief which he read out, straight from the script, in a rather hurried manner. I have to say at that first meeting I was distinctly unimpressed. It seemed to me that the sub-text of what was being said was that 'we're the biggest party down here, you're the biggest party up there, why don't we get together and divvy up the place between us?' That may not have been what was intended but it struck me as an incredibly naive approach and failed simply to recognise that we were unionist in a sense which was not a matter of tactics but reflected a real sense of identity and a real desire to continue as part, as we always have been part, of the United Kingdom."
An inauspicious start, then, to his dialogue with Bertie Ahern. But the situation was very different when Trimble met the Taoiseach at the Sheraton Belgravia Hotel in London on November 20th, 1997.
"Again that was slightly disconcerting. It was supposed to be a private meeting and by the time it had finished somebody was looking out the first floor window and said RTÉ had just arrived. But that didn't spoil the occasion. I can't actually point to anything that was specifically said or done. We opened up some of our ideas for, not just a North-South arrangement, but something on a British Isles basis, what became the British-Irish Council - and we got the very distinct impression that, while nothing was agreed, the Irish government was in business for the sort of things that we had in mind."
Understandably, given the passage of time, Trimble's recollection of this meeting seems somewhat hazy. But it was more than an impression he took away from that encounter. Indeed, such was the excitement generated on both sides that The Irish Times reported it the following day in terms of a significant breakthrough in the relationship between the Ulster Unionists and the Fianna Fáil-led government in Dublin which had significantly improved the prospects for a political agreement on the North.
Trimble affirms: "My impression of Bertie is of a pragmatist. The impression that I got rightly or wrongly was that he doesn't have much historical baggage." So - despite the fact that Pádraig Pearse was reportedly Ahern's idol, and that according to one biographer Ahern only joined Fianna Fáil rather than Irish Labour because of his republicanism - Trimble didn't actually get the impression that he was dealing with a committed or driven republican?
"That's what I mean by saying that he is a pragmatist. There were plenty of people who said to me, 'Oh, you can't trust him, he's just a wheeler-dealer and this is his background in trade unionism, it's just a matter of cutting a deal'. I know that there have been tensions obviously, he has got a different viewpoint to represent and I don't expect him to agree with me all the time and I don't expect him to approach issues in the same way that I would. And of course he has people in the DFA [Department of Foreign Affairs] who are driven by an ideological viewpoint and that sometimes causes problems. But I do have to say that in the dealings I've subsequently had with him, I've never had the sense or an occasion which I can point to and say he deliberately let me down."
Does Trimble believe that Ahern was the only leader who could have done the deal [ on the Belfast Agreement, in 1998]?
"I don't think any of his predecessors could have, and I don't think any of his predecessors would have put the effort in that he did in the last week of negotiations. We all remember [ Tony] Blair flying in from London. But a lot of people seem to forget that for Ahern coming to Belfast at that time was a huge step, particularly with his mother dying. He could very easily and very understandably have said, 'No, for personal reasons I can't come'. But he came and again there was an openness and a flexibility. We would not have got that agreement and understanding on how to manage the arrangements with regard to the North-South Ministerial Council (NSMC) on the Wednesday night without both Ahern and Paddy Teahon [ adviser to the Taoiseach] being in the room.
"It became clear to us later that they had started off with a different idea about how to do things and when we put our alternative ideas as to how to do it in front of them they were quick enough to see the merit in what we were saying, and flexible enough to move on that. It also became clear to us that they had a previous approach which they had discussed with the SDLP, and that there were people within the Irish camp saying, 'Oh, we agreed with the SDLP what is going to happen here, so we can't change that and have an arrangement with the unionists which is different to what we've agreed with the SDLP'. And what was being sought there was something that could be represented by nationalists as being a victory over unionists. Instead, what we had when we finished that negotiation was something which achieved the aims and objectives of the Irish in terms of putting in place the NSMC and ensuring that there would be serious content, without there being an element of imposition on unionists.
"From our point of view it did the business without either party feeling in any way upset by it. But there had been elements within the Irish camp and Northern nationalists who wanted, as it were, a tribal victory as well. Indeed, they had to close down the negotiation, end the session then in order to go and sort this out within the Irish delegation and between them and Northern nationalists. So that to me was a significant element."
What about the man himself? Does Trimble like Ahern? Is he somebody he would have a drink with, be happy to spend an evening in his company?
"We really got on very well and he has a habit when we're in Dublin for meetings of wanting to have a private chat beforehand, before the delegations formally meet. He and I would go into a room together and just sit there for 10 or 15 minutes and chat. He relishes doing the business privately and then we'd go out and have the meeting, and there would also be a little sort of personal element in the conversation and he clearly prefers to work that way."
How did Trimble assess Ahern's attitude toward Sinn Féin and the IRA?
"I never felt that he was going to be easy on republican violence and I think that has been borne out by the way in which the Irish State has worked effectively in dealing with people like the Real IRA. So I never thought there was going to be any sort of weakness there. With regard to achieving decommissioning and so on, again I got the impression that this was something that they too were committed to achieving. There were, however, points at which they would be driven purely by self-interest. The Garda McCabe case is one point. Another was where Ahern made this point about the Irish Constitution and that republicans couldn't be involved in any form of coalition in the Irish government while there was still a private army in existence. There were of course a lot of unionists who . . ."
Who resented what they saw as a double standard, I offer. Didn't he?
"I was going to say a lot of unionists felt this was a little bit off, that they were telling us to form an administration with them while saying it couldn't happen in the Republic. And it was a contrast. But look, we were onlygetting involved with Sinn Féin on the basis that there was a transition that would bring about the end of the private army. We never went into the administration on the basis that we would still be there if there was no transition and that there would always be a republican private army that was armed and threatening. We only went into the administration on the basis that this was a transition in which the arms would disappear and the private army would disappear."
So Trimble was not implicitly accepting an Irish double standard - a suggestion that he had reason to be doing something in the North that would not be acceptable in the South?
"No, it's not as if we're going to say, 'Well, you will be doing that and that is how things will be because of your different circumstances'. That's not as I understood it because we were only acting on the basis that there would be a transition, and at the end of that transition we would be in exactly the same position as Ahern was. So to see Ahern take that position, I felt actually strengthened us. That was the position to which we were moving and wishing to move and the fact that he supports the projected end state carries with it implicit support for the transition."
