Guidance on UK ministerial contacts with Sinn Féin changed four times ahead of GFA

Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. File Picture: PA

Official guidance to UK ministers on engaging with Sinn Féin was updated four times in the lead up to the Good Friday Agreement in response to IRA activity and the party’s shifting positions on non-violence.

A series of memos circulated among Government departments in Northern Ireland during 1997 and 1998 show how a ban on ministers meeting directly with Sinn Féin was lifted only to be reinstated a few months later.