Éamon de Valera, the President of the Dáil objected to the Treaty on the grounds that it had been signed without cabinet consent and that it secured neither the full independence of Ireland nor Irish unity. Collins and his supporters argued that de Valera had refused strenuous pleas from Collins, Griffith and others to lead the London negotiations in person. He had refused the delegates' continual requests for instruction, and in fact had been at the centre of the original decision to enter negotiations without the possibility of an independent republic on the table.