Church's intervention: The role of any future Council of Ireland and the assassination campaign against Catholic civilians by loyalists dominated a meeting between Cardinal William Conway, Bishop William Philbin of Down and Connor and the British Secretary of State, William Whitelaw, at Stormont Castle on December 5th, 1972.
The Secretary of State stressed the importance of providing effective participation for the minority in any new administration. He added that he "did not foresee any real difficulty in setting up a Council of Ireland and having it generally accepted".
The Cardinal suggested the Council of Ireland should have an inbuilt capacity to exercise executive powers by mutual agreement of its members. He was particularly anxious that the Council should not be simply "a talking shop". The Cardinal said that if the new administration was similar to the previous one, "then we would be back to square one".
Mr Whitelaw remarked there were several areas in which the Cardinal might like to help the administration. In particular, he could use his influence in both North and South to encourage people to make the Council of Ireland worthwhile and, secondly, he might persuade influential minority figures to stand for election to the new Assembly. In the Secretary of State's view, "the emergence of responsible and influential Catholic figures was essential". The Cardinal and Bishop Philbin agreed to do what they could along these lines by personal contact.
Cardinal Conway turned to current problems about which he was "extremely concerned". He pointed out that the total number of Catholics assassinated since January 1st, 1972, was 77, at present averaging about four per week. There might be some doubt as to the sectarian nature of a small number of these deaths but there could be no reasonable doubt that the overwhelming majority of the victims were innocent Catholics, he said.
So far there had been no official recognition of the existence of this campaign. On the contrary, official statements had tended to obscure the statistics and the clear inferences to be drawn from them. The result was that British public opinion and world opinion was as yet virtually unaware of the existence of this campaign.
The Cardinal suggested that either the Prime Minister (Mr Heath) or Mr Whitelaw should at an early date "draw explicit attention to this anti-Catholic campaign". He strongly suggested the number of troops should be augmented and the "saturation policy" should be extended to many areas outside the Catholic ghettoes.
As an example of the difficulties being experienced in mixed areas by Catholics, the Cardinal referred to the Cregagh Estate in south-east Belfast where Catholic business premises, homes and people were being constantly attacked while the British Army openly admitted they were unable to deal with the problem due to insufficient troops.
Replying, the Secretary of State said he would do all he could to meet the Cardinal's request that the existence of the "Protestant backlash" be publicised. Bishop Philbin supported the Cardinal's views about harassment by the army in Catholic areas and said that military vehicles continued to appear at the entrance to schools, notably Holy Child School in West Belfast. Mr Whitelaw said he would ask the GOC if this could be stopped.
On the appointment of Catholics to civil service and local government posts, the Cardinal claimed that of 28 executive appointments made so far in the Roads and Planning Divisions of the Ministry of Development, only one had been a Catholic.
Mr Whitelaw explained the difficulty in making any spectacular changes in personnel in a short time but the Cardinal felt a radical decision was required.
• Dr Eamon Phoenix is a senior lecturer in history at Stranmillis College, Belfast.