In the improvement of the political climate between Britain and Ireland, the heads of state and government of the two countries met to negotiate. Ireland and Great Britain agreed that any change in the status of Northern Ireland would only be possible with the agreement of the majority of the population of Northern Ireland and an Intergovernmental Conference was established to examine the political, security and legal relations between the two parts of the island. The agreement dealt a blow to northern Irish unionists, as it played an advisory role for the Irish government in Northern Ireland affairs through the Anglo-Irish Secretariat. The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and other trade unionists terminated the agreement and UUP MPs resigned their seats because of this issue (although 14 were returned in by-elections in 1986). The party organized mass protests and boycotts of city councils and filed a complaint against the legality of the agreement. These efforts, joined by the Democratic Unionist Party, failed to force the abrogation of the agreement. The result of these referendums was a large majority in both parts of Ireland in favour of the agreement. In the Republic, 56% of voters, 94% of the vote, voted in favour of revising the Constitution. In Northern Ireland, turnout was 81% and 71% of the vote was in favour of the agreement. In 2004, negotiations were held between the two governments, the DUP and Sinn Féin, with a view to an agreement on institution-building. These talks failed, but a document released by governments detailing changes to the Belfast Agreement has been known as the “Global Agreement”. On 26 September, however, on 27 September 2005, it was announced that the Commissional Irish Republican Army had completely closed its arsenal of weapons and had “put it out of use”. Yet many trade unionists, especially the DUP, remained skeptical.

Of the loyalist paramilitaries, only the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) had taken weapons out of service. [21] Further negotiations took place in October 2006 and resulted in the St. Andrews Agreement. The agreement set out a complex set of provisions which concern a number of areas, the agreement of which established the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, composed of officials of the British and Irish Governments. This body addressed political, legal and security issues in Northern Ireland, as well as the “promotion of cross-border cooperation”. It had only an advisory function – it did not have the power to make decisions or amend laws. [1] The Conference would have the power to make proposals only “to the extent that these matters do not fall within the competence of a de decentralised administration in Northern Ireland”. This provision should encourage unionists (who voted through the conference against the irish government`s participation in Northern Ireland) to set up a decentralised power-sharing government. Maryfield`s secretariat was the permanent secretariat of the conference, which included officials from the Foreign Office of the Republic, whose headquarters are in the suburb of Maryfield in Belfast. .