The trial hit a major roadwork in September, when Mrs Thatcher Hurd was locked into a major cabinet reshuffle and went from the Northern Ireland Office to the Home Secretary. Christopher Patton, one of his junior ministers, who had the delicate task of having political discussions with the parties in Northern Ireland, was appointed junior minister in the Department of Education. These changes seemed, once again, to indicate the British view that Northern Ireland is not very important to the concerns of the continental United Kingdom. The reactions of the press in London and Dublin were negative, especially since Tom King, Kurd`s successor, was not a well-known political figure. Like most of his predecessors, he had little experience and little knowledge of the North. When it became clear that the agreement was already well advanced and that its details would be decided by the Prime Minister himself, those concerns faded. To dramatize their assertion that the agreement is contrary to the democratic atmosphere of the province, the trade unionists, who held 15 of Northern Ireland`s 17 seats in the House of Commons, resigned as a group. There was some risk in this manoeuvre, since four of the Unionist seats are in nationalist zones. Trade unionists represent these districts only because the moderate SDLP and sinn Fein, more militant, have divided the nationalist voice. To avoid dividing their own vote, trade unionists have entered into an electoral pact that names only one of their votes in each constituency. After nine days of public debate, on 7 January 1922, D adopted the new treaty by 64 votes to 57, but this was not the treaty assembly. As a result, its approval of the treaty was not sufficient to meet the treaty requirements.

The “meeting” required by the terms of the contract was therefore called. On January 14, 1922, he formally approved the treaty. The “meeting” itself had a somewhat ambiguous status, as it was not convened or executed according to the procedures established for the House of Commons or was not declared a meeting of D`Ilreann. Opponents of the treaty remained on the sidelines, meaning that only the pro-contract members and the four elected trade unionists (who have never sat in the ilerann commune) participated in the assembly. The assemblies approved the treaty by an overwhelming majority, appointed Michael Collins as head of the interim government and immediately dispersed without parliamentary business taking place. This was the next time the lower house of Southern Ireland came into service; There has never been another meeting, but the vote of 14 January, in strict accordance with the text of the treaty, allowed the British authorities to affirm respect for legal kindness. At his separate press conference, Prime Minister FitzGerald clung to the language and the timidly hopeful tone of the communiqué. He described the discussions as “broad and constructive.” He refused to be drawn into a public disagreement with the British Prime Minister.

But their statements have caused a storm of criticism in Ireland. Hume, for example, characterized his language as a provocation of “deep and legitimate anger and insults.” Back in Dublin, during a closed-door meeting of his party`s MPs, FitzGerald described their remarks as “insulting for free,” a phrase that quickly entered the newspapers. It would be ridiculous to think that we could send five men to conclude a treaty without the right to ratification by this House. That`s the only thing that matters. It was therefore agreed that this treaty is only an agreement and that it is binding only when the D has ratified it. That is what it is all about. Contacts between the Irish and British governments continued after February 1987 as part of the formal structure of the IGC. Fears that violence in Northern Ireland would spread to Ireland as a result of closer Anglo-Irish cooperation following the agreement proved unfounded and the UUP decided to participate in new negotiations on Northern Ireland`s constitutional future in 1990/93.