Editing Garret FitzGerald (section)

=== Northern Ireland ===
FitzGerald set up the [[New Ireland Forum]] in 1983, which brought together representatives of the constitutional political parties in the Republic and the nationalist [[SDLP]] from Northern Ireland. Although the Unionist parties declined his invitation to join, and the Forum's conclusions proposing various forms of association between Northern Ireland and the Republic were rejected outright by British prime minister [[Margaret Thatcher]], the Forum provided the impetus for the resumption of serious negotiations between the Irish and British governments, which culminated in the [[Anglo-Irish Agreement]] of November 1985. This agreement provided for a mechanism by which the British government could consult the Republic of Ireland regarding the governance of Northern Ireland,<ref name="BBC-obit">{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13451945 |title=Obituary: Irish statesman Garret FitzGerald |work=BBC News |date=19 May 2011 |access-date=21 May 2011 |archive-date=20 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110520022723/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13451945 |url-status=live}}</ref> and was bitterly opposed by Unionists in Northern Ireland, whose MPs all resigned their seats in the [[British Parliament]] in protest. New elections were required to be held in Northern Ireland, in which the unionists lost the seat of [[Newry and Armagh (UK Parliament constituency)|Newry and Armagh]] to [[Seamus Mallon]] of the SDLP. During this period, on 15 March 1984, he was also invited to address a [[joint session of the United States Congress]], the fourth Irish leader to do so.{{efn|Six Irish leaders have addressed [[List of joint sessions of the United States Congress|joint sessions of the US Congress]]:{{Circular reference|date=May 2020}} [[Seán T. O'Kelly]] (<!--18 March -->1959), [[Éamon de Valera]] (<!--28 May -->1964), [[Liam Cosgrave]] (<!--17 March -->1976), FitzGerald (<!--15 March -->1984), [[John Bruton]] (<!--11 September -->1996) and [[Bertie Ahern]] (<!--30 April -->2008).}}

His government had also passed the Extradition Act 1987, which ended the long-standing defence against [[extradition]] of suspects who could plead that an act of violence in Northern Ireland or Britain was a political offence.<ref>{{Cite Irish legislation |name=Extradition (European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism) Act 1987|year=1987 |number=1 |section=3|date=21 January 1987|stitle=Certain offences not to be regarded as political offences}}</ref>

While the agreement was repudiated and condemned by Unionists, it was said to become the basis for developing trust and joint action between the governments, which in time would ultimately bring about the [[Downing Street Declaration]] of 1993 and the subsequent republican and [[Ulster loyalism|loyalist]] cease-fires.<ref name="Independent-Obit" />