CIMS Branches Visit Armagh on 26 Oct 2010
  
  The North / South Ministerial Council building in Armagh  

 
  North South Secretariat Building   Under the Agreement reached on Good Friday 1998 several strands were initiated:
- Strand one ...Institutions within Northern Ireland
- Strand two....North / South Institutions
- Strand three. East/West or British/Irish Institutions
Other strands dealt with Rights, Safeguards and Equality of Opportunity, with Security, Policing & Justice, Prisoner release and decommissioning.

Strand two includes many areas where North/ South cooperation is essential or of great value. This encompasses work of six existing bodies and six new Implementation Bodies. The staff for each of these bodies are at different location throughout \Ireland, but responsible in a web of relationships to the various government departments North and south. These 730 staff located at 17 locations are monitored and funded through the North / South Ministerial Council and Secretariat located in a new headquartes in Armagh city on the site of the old town hall destroyed by an IRA bomb in 1972.		  

Dean Patrick Rooke (Hon Sec), Pat Donaghy (Deputy Joint Secy for the North), Brian Jeffers (Chairman of the Armagh Group), Bill Nolan (Deputy Joint Secy for the South) and Wilfred Young (Hon Lay Secy)
North South Secretariat Building The Secretariat consists of 23 Civil Servants, 12 appointed by the Office of the First & Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland and 11 appointed on a three year secondment from the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin.

Pat Donaghy (Deputy Joint Sec for the North) spoke about the work of the North/South Ministerial Council and the Secretariat, followed by personal reflections from Bill Nolan (Deputy Joint Sec for the South). Members were then shown around the building and served with refreshments.

The meeting was chired by Brian Jeffers, Chairman of the Armagh Group
         
  North South Secretariat Building