The following is the Counter-proposal drafted by President de Valéra as an Amendment to the motion for Approval of the Articles of Agreement. He intended to move the Amendment on January 4th, 1922.
‘That inasmuch as the ‘Articles of Agreement for a treaty between Great Britain and Ireland’, signed in London on December 6th, 1921, do not reconcile Irish National aspirations and the Association of Ireland with the Community of Nations known as the British Commonwealth, and cannot be the basis of an enduring peace between the Irish and the British peoples, DÁIL ÉIREANN, in the name of the Sovereign Irish Nation, makes to the Government of Great Britain, to the Government of the other States of the British Commonwealth, and to the peoples of Great Britain and of these several States, the following Proposal for a Treaty of Amity and Association which, DÁIL ÉIREANN is convinced, could be entered into by the Irish people with the sincerity of goodwill’: