- Irish Ministers had been pleasantly surprised by their bilaterals with the UUP yesterday and this morning. In particular it seemed to the Irish that the UUP were willing to go further on executive authority for North/South institutions than HMG. The Secretary of State and Mr Hanley explained to the Irish that we had no hang ups about executive authority; our objection had simply been that it would have been counterproductive to be prescriptive in a Strand III document about what should emerge from Strand II. It had been clear that the Irish still suspected that HMG was reticent over executive authority. Our Ministers attempted to disabuse them of this. Their suspicions of us had been increased by the fact that the UUP had given them a two page paper on executive authority which they said had not been shown to us;

- Mr Flynn had shown unequivocal hostility to Mr Hume's ideas on security: "I don't even want to discuss it" had been his repeated litany when Mr Molloy had attempted to touch on the subject;

- The Irish had reaffirmed their need for constitutional balance if they were to put the amendment of Articles 2 and 3 to the Irish people. The Secretary of State had pressed them successfully to reflect further on what specifically they wanted. He had resisted suggestions that we should attempt a draft: it was for them to suggest what they thought would be necessary in order to persuade the Irish people;

- The Irish had suggested that they would not have a Ministerial presence in Belfast on Wednesday because of questions in the Dail though since, so far as we knew, questions were only to the Tanaiste it was not entirely clear why other Irish Ministers could not be present.