A CRITICAL `insider' view of the SDLP leadership in 1992 is revealed in previously confidential files released today.

A SECRET NIO assessment of the status of the IRA's four-month old ceasefire and the British security response suggested the possibility of withdrawing weapons from police in daylight hours.

SECRETARY of state Sir Patrick Mayhew gave short shrift to US President Bill Clinton's offer to appoint an Irish `peace envoy' in discussions with the German Ambassador in 1993.

THE idea of selling the island of Ireland as a `single destination' was sharply criticised by the DUP’s deputy leader Peter Robinson.

THE US Consul General in Belfast was among those complaining about "unsightly and frightening appearance" and inordinate delays caused by many cross-border British Army checkpoints in the early 1990s.

BY the summer of 1986, in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, intimidation had reached serious proportions in Belfast, Portadown, Ballymena and other unionist towns, while other firms were being intimidated by the IRA for undertaking work for police and the British army.

FRAUDULENT voting was common in Northern Ireland in the 1990s but the main culprits were not Sinn Féin, state papers released today reveal. 

THE RUC decision to withdraw its 'close protection service' for Irish officials working in the Anglo-Irish Joint Secretariat at Maryfield, near Belfast, sparked a major row between a senior Irish official and the NIO in 1995.