Mr. Rory Montgomery:

George Mitchell and his team - Nancy Soderberg and others - played an extraordinarily important role in keeping the show on the road. They presided over the formal sessions. He was an incredibly articulate spokesman for the importance of agreement. He could communicate superbly in simple, succinct and dignified language. He had also, of course, been involved in drawing up the famous Mitchell principles of non-violence and so on. All of that was very important. However, the actual negotiation of the text was overwhelmingly between the two Governments and the various political parties in regard to individual aspects, such as prisoners in the case of Sinn Féin and North-South issues and so on in the case of the SDLP and the UUP. That was kind of how it worked. The role of Clinton was obviously very important. Members may remember the famous visa for Gerry Adams back before the IRA ceasefire, at the end of August 1994. That was significant and caused a rift with the British Government for a period, as well as between the British and Irish Governments. The American involvement was hugely important but, at the same time, it was overwhelmingly an agreement that was home-grown between the British and Irish Governments, as well as politicians and others across the islands.

I have many memories of it. An opinion poll was published in the Belfast Telegraphin early March. Of those polled, 10% thought there would be an agreement, while 90% thought there would not. In mid-March we started exchanging texts and language between the two Governments. As I stated earlier, there was frantic work on North-South issues and that moved to London for three days the week before. Bertie Ahern happened to be there with Tony Blair. Britain had the EU Presidency at the time and Bertie Ahern was over there for that and they met but it was, above all, the group of officials. I remember faxing things off to people - one faxed things in those days - from the Downing Street fax machine and thinking to myself that this was quite something. I think it even had the Downing Street fax header and cover page on it. That is the way it worked. Another document was sent from a hotel in Cheltenham by a then senior civil servant who liked his racing, but that is another day's work. That was a bit earlier. There were many moments.

As Mr. Donoghue stated, when we reached agreement with the British in respect of North-South issues on the Saturday beforehand, that was good. There was then a very strong unionist reaction. The deal was that Bertie Ahern made his compromise on the Wednesday night. The weird thing was that was not being very well communicated. I remember that Paddy Teahon came in and instructed Tim O'Connor and me to write some new language on North-South issues. Tim and I wrote up more or less what we assumed our position had been and was, and gave it to Teahon, who said it was not what he wanted at all. It was only at the third go that he told us about the changes to which Bertie Ahern had agreed, which then made it possible for us to know what it was he wanted. That is the kind of way things can work.

On the final day, as Mr. Donoghue said, there was a mixture of total exhaustion and adrenaline. He might remember that some of us had been staying in the Stormont Hotel and there was a loyalist threat so we all had to be moved into a bunker and sleep on the floor. On the final day or two we were just sleeping on chairs and so on. There was a great exhilaration because it was a beautiful bright morning. I remember going for a walk around the castle buildings and the Stormont estate. It had been a really cold and frosty morning, with snow overnight. The loyalists had been throwing snowballs at the DUP, whose members were protesting outside the walls. I was with my friend, Mr. David Cooney, later Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and another of my bosses, and we agreed that no matter what happened to us in the rest of our careers, nothing would ever equal it. He went on to be a Secretary General and I went on to be the permanent representative to the European Union and so on.

There was a premature celebration. Despite the fact it was Good Friday, somebody had laid hands on a few bottles of champagne so this was drunk with great excitement at 10 a.m. or 11 a.m. We then heard the deal was not finished after all. There was exhaustion, incipient hangover and general despair; it was a terrible moment. As Mr. Donoghue has said, the word then went through. I will never forget because Mr. Mitchell convened the meeting and all the leaders sat around the table. Everybody in the building, more or less, forced their way into the back of the room. There were guys in chef's whites who fought their way through to stand in the back of the room. Everyone was there and there was a tremendous sense of a democratic moment.

We also had the final irony with the press conferences because there had to be a formal British-Irish agreement. As the committee knows, the agreement was in two parts, with a formal British-Irish agreement and the text of a multiparty agreement as an annexe. The text had to be signed and Prime Minister Tony Blair was in a mad hurry to get off the stage for his Easter holidays. His wife and kids were already there on some fine estate loaned to them by the then Spanish Prime Minister, Mr. José Aznar. He had to be dragged back in to sign this text. I had been organising this with my British opposite number. The nearest room was one with no flags or anything. There were dirty coffee cups on the edge. We sat them down and only one photographer, who was from Reuters, could be found. That is why there is only one photograph of the two of them signing the thing. I arranged that a member of our delegation, the co-ordinator, would be there to give the pen to sign the document but she could not be found so I had to do it. They went sprinting out of the room. Mr. Blair went out and got his helicopter. Off he went for his Easter holiday. It was extraordinary.