Stormont ministers in September 1971 moved quickly to prevent the new nationalist Assembly of the Northern Irish People from holding its meetings in Derry's Guildhall.
On the general question of the government's attitude towards the alternative Assembly, formed by the SDLP and other nationalist parties, the Attorney-General, Mr Basil Kelly, counselled against giving it any enhanced status by taking any action against it or recognising its existence so long as it remained only "a debating society" and did not take any executive action or wrongfully direct the use of finance such as unpaid rents.