Mr. Jonathan Powell:

I again thank the committee for inviting me to speak. The lead up to the Good Friday Agreement is a good place to start. It is important to view it in a larger context. It was not as if the Good Friday Agreement appeared from nowhere. It was built on previous attempts at negotiation, in particular the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Although it, Sunningdale and, in the end, the Downing Street Declaration failed, the Good Friday Agreement built upon all three. We see that in Colombia and elsewhere. Agreements are not magicked out of thin air; they build on a series of attempts to get to peace. The crucial point about the Good Friday Agreement negotiations was making them inclusive.

The negotiations succeeded where others had failed primarily because of the good relations between the Irish and British Governments and the way they worked together closely. That was absolutely fundamental. John Major worked very closely with his opposite number. However, I remember being on the fringes of what was happening at the British embassy in Washington. I knew the people doing the negotiations on the British side pretty well. There was still a certain frisson of suspicion between the British and Irish Governments at that stage and slightly different interests.

One of the questions the Senator asked is why Tony Blair was interested in Northern Ireland at all. There are precisely no votes relating to Northern Ireland in British politics. One would not do it in order to win political success. When he became leader of the Opposition in 1994, Tony Blair changed the policy of the Labour Party from being a persuader for unity into supporting John Major in his efforts to reach peace. He felt that it was crucial for all of our islands, should be above politics and have an approach of bipartisanship.

Tony Blair supported John Major even when he thought some of the things John Major did were wrong. He deliberately thought it was important for the two parties to stay together. His interest came in part from his time spent as a child in Donegal with an Orange grandmother with whom he used to stay. However, it was more than that. It was about a commitment to making peace and he invested a great deal of his political capital in trying to make that peace. The first visit he made out of London after being elected in 1997 was to Balmoral outside Belfast to make a speech to reassure unionists that the Labour Party was not a threat to them, but rather determined to try to get to an inclusive peace.

Tony Blair established a good relationship with Bertie Ahern from very early on. The fact that both men were able to stay in office for so long was crucial. In the history of Northern Ireland, British Prime Ministers came and went. Tony Blair was someone who was determined to make a difference in Northern Ireland - he stayed in office for a long time - in partnership with his Irish opposite number. It was crucial that Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern were prepared to take risks for peace. They could have been criticised on both sides or things could have gone horribly wrong. Even setting a deadline for the Good Friday Agreement by saying it would be done by Easter of the next year was a big risk. Civil servants spent a lot of time trying to persuade Tony Blair to change his mind on that and not to crash it but rather extend the deadline. He insisted on sticking to it. The risk taking on both sides was crucially important. Once Tony Blair got his teeth into trying to solve the Northern Ireland problem, he was very reluctant to give it up. He is a very persistent person and he wanted to get to a solution.

In his autobiography Tony Blair says that I said that he solved Northern Ireland because he had a messiah complex. In fact, it was not that. It was Mo Mowlam, who had a very colourful turn of phrase, who told me that Tony Blair thought he was "effing Jesus", which is not quite the same thing as a messiah complex but is closely related. He actually believed Northern Ireland could be resolved and he believed he could contribute to that. That belief and commitment were crucial.

I have probably been a little long-winded and I apologise.