Both the Irish President of the Executive Council and the Northern Ireland Prime Minister agreed in the negotiations on 3 December to bury the report as part of a wider intergovernmental settlement. The remaining commissioners discussed the matter with the politicians at length, and expected publication within weeks. However, W. T. Cosgrave said that he:..believed that it would be in the interests of Irish peace that the Report should be burned or buried, because another set of circumstances had arrived, and a bigger settlement had been reached beyond any that the Award of the Commission could achieve.