The British and Irish Governments, which have watched this vote cautiously, have had some encouraging news. The two nationalist parties ran only in the four districts where Catholics are in the majority. SDLP candidates committed themselves to the agreement and their votes increased by 19% compared to the level of the 1983 parliamentary elections. Support for Sinn Fein, which attacks the deal as a “pay” to the British, has dropped by 25%. Given that the political justification for the deal is to reduce the alienation of nationalists, the SDLP`s strong performance indicates that this justification is strong. The failure of the Prior`s Assembly initiative made it clear to the British Prime Minister that if it was taking steps to change the unsused dynamics of the situation in Northern Ireland, it should do so through an agreement with Dublin. In this sense, the 1985 agreement reflects British anger at the stubbornness and sterility of the Unionist position. The functioning of the Intergovernmental Conference has been carefully defined. (The term “conference” has instead been used as a Council or Commission, on the one hand because the number and identity of the ministers of the cabinets present should vary according to the topics discussed and, on the other hand, because the “conference” seems less structured and permanent and could therefore be less intimidating for unionists.) The Intergovernmental Conference must meet either at ministerial or official level, its meetings must be “regular and frequent” and their affairs “will receive attention at the highest level”. The Irish Minister, appointed as Permanent Representative of the Irish Ministry, and the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will be co-chairs. The Agreement will set up a joint secretariat to follow up on the decisions of the Intergovernmental Conference and plan future meetings. The creation of this secretariat with offices in the immediate vicinity of the Northern Ireland Government Complex in Stormont means that, for the first time since 1922, civil servants from the south of Ireland are working in the north. The agreement, which was finally published in November 1985, was the culmination of eighteen months of negotiations which began almost immediately after the publication of the New Ireland Forum report in May 1984 at official level.

On this path, there were the two Prime Ministers` Summits, their four informal meetings on the margins of the Joint European Market Conferences, six meetings of ministers from ministerial cabinets and 35 between lower-level officials. .