ABSTRACT
The Active Service Unit (ASU) started out with a large demand, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, and then moved to a reluctant set of talks with the police, to a position of defiance that eventually led to the final phase of the siege, where they sought out from the police the terms of their surrender. The ASU had trapped them in the building and any attempt to escape by the front door would have put them at a tactical disadvantage and they would have been shot, arrested or both if they had tried to escape to the building with the rapidly escalating police presence in the street outside. Daithi O'Connell knew his opening gambit would be rejected, and in doing so Ernest Bond would also have realized that the police would be in no position to give or receive anything until the situation regarding hostages had been evaluated. Hostage negotiation events typically follow four distinct phases of Contact, Bargaining, Agreement and Conclusion.
