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Sunningdale established a "Power Sharing Executive" - a voluntary coalition (unlike the provisions of the Belfast Agreement) - of pro-agreement parties. These were the members of the Ulster Unionist Party that supported the agreement, the moderate nationalist and Social Democratic and Labour Party and the moderate unionist and cross-community Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. Prominent members of the executive included former Unionist Prime Minister Brian Faulkner as Chief Executive, then SDLP leader Gerry Fitt as Deputy Chief Executive, and future Nobel Laureate and SDLP leader John Hume as Minister for Commerce.
The agreement also established provisions for a Council of Ireland to stimulate co-operation with the Republic of IrelandThe Republic of Ireland ( Irish: Poblacht na hEireann is the common term for a state which covers approximately five-sixths of the island of Ireland, off the coast of northwest Europe. It is the western-most state of the European Union. The remaining sixt and this was the proximate cause of the Ulster Workers Council strike that brought down the executive.
Some twenty-six years after the collapse of Sunningdale, the Belfast Agreement replicated many of its principles and was famously described as "Sunningdale for slow learners" by SDLP Deputy Leader Seamus MallonSeamus Mallon (born 17 August 1936) is Northern Ireland politician and former Deputy Leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party. He served as the first Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister, from 1999 to 2001. Seamus Mallon, MP ''first.
History of Northern IrelandThe area now known as Northern Ireland has had a diverse history. From being the bedrock of Irish nationalism in the era of the plantations of Queen Elizabeth and James I in other parts of Ireland, it became itself the source of major planting of Scottish