The need for urgent government action in areas which had been freed from IRA control was stressed at a Stormont Cabinet meeting on March 7th, 1972.
The Minister of Community Relations, Mr Basil McIvor, tabled a memo in which he told colleagues the British army had indicated certain minority areas of Belfast such as Ballymacarrett, were being freed from IRA control, and had pointed out the necessity of restoring the Northern Ireland government's authority in these areas.
The need for some government agency to concentrate on this problem had been highlighted in a recent BBC Panorama programme which alleged civil government was taking no interest in these areas and that the opportunity of "recapturing hearts and minds, afforded by the Army's success, was being lost".
In the Minister's view, there was a need for the government to formulate a strategy to try to win back people in these areas through a sympathetic response and the investment of appropriate resources. He felt the Ministry of Community Relations should undertake this "crucial task" though lacking in the finance and staff to do so. Once the army declared that an area had been "freed from IRA control", the government must respond to the needs of local people as part of a Social Reconstruction Programme. Mr McIvor stressed the importance of not allowing areas freed from IRA domination to become void or to let it appear that the army was the only organisation interested in their welfare. Not only law and order, but total government control must be re-established.
Ministers were generally favourable to Mr McIvor's proposal though the Minister of Development, Mr Roy Bradford, stressed the importance of equality of treatment for all areas, not just those which had been troublesome to the government.