Mr. David Donoghue:

With the Chairman's permission, I will try to respond to the first question, which was very important. It was on whether there would have been an agreement had the DUP been involved. In my opinion, there would have been absolutely no agreement. It is hypothetical. We did witness the approach to the talks of the DUP and the UK Unionist Party, which was linked to it, at an earlier stage. As Mr. Montgomery mentioned, they left in September 1997 once Sinn Féin was back in. Hypothetically, if I were to guess whether they would have blocked an agreement had they stayed on and were still there in Easter week, I would certainly say they would have.

It is an issue of what happened. There is no doubt that the decommissioning issue weakened Mr. David Trimble. Eventually, several years later, he had to pay the price for it. In a way, what is more important is that the DUP found a way to reconcile itself to the new agreement, which clearly did command a significant level of support. Mr. Montgomery's point about 71% is absolutely valid but there was no doubt that the agreement was then part of the landscape. Several years later, the DUP was probably looking for a way of climbing on board rather than remaining in permanent opposition. That would be my guess.

The way that they achieved that was through the St. Andrews Agreement of 2006, which, strictly speaking, was merely a tweaking of the Good Friday Agreement. It clarified a few points but it gave the DUP enough face-saving cover to decide that things were now radically different from what had happened in 1998 and, therefore, it could come on board. My gut feeling is that they would ultimately have found a way of coming on board even if it took several years but, in 1998, they would probably have walked many times before Easter week. They would not still have been there by Easter week. That was the reality.

On the point about Jeffrey Donaldson, it is true - I will not make a political comment - Jeffrey walked out on Good Friday itself. He was obviously unhappy with what was being negotiated. I suppose different people have different approaches to the agreement at different times. Of course, he was still in the UUP at that stage.

Ultimately, the DUP did the right thing, in my view. They found a way of narrowing the distance between themselves and the Good Friday Agreement.