Mr. John Bruton:

As I explained earlier, the twin-track approach emanated from a meeting at Downing Street. I was literally talking to John Major almost up to the time the plane took off to bring us to London, trying to persuade him that this was be a good idea, we were nearly there and we should do something to move it on that night because Bill Clinton was coming the next day. In fact, that is how the United States was very helpful - not because of anything it did but because of the interest it showed and the focus or context that provided. I cannot remember who came up with the term "twin-track approach". It was not me anyway. As I explained, it involved parallel discussions. The opposite of the twin-track approach is a preconditions approach, whereby there would be a requirement to decommission before being involved in political talks. That was not going to run. We could not say we were going to have political talks and would leave decommissioning until the end. The unionists would not have accepted that, although, in a way, they ended up accepting it and had to live with it, because that is what the IRA did. The twin-track approach was an obvious compromise between the preconditions - decommissioning first and talks second or talks first and decommissioning second. It was the parallel approach. It was not a stroke of genius but it was a stroke of genius to get it done when we got it done.