The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, has said he misjudged the effect that the appearance of the Balcombe Street gang would have at the Sinn Fein Ardfheis 10 days ago.
"I misjudged the raw emotion of delight which gripped the Sinn Fein Ardfheis when these four men came in. You might think that's a provocative thing to say but those four men were buried for 23 years in British prisons and endured years and years of solitary confinement.
"It was I who asked for them to be there. I am glad they were there. I can understand why some elements of our society were outraged by that."
Mr Adams made the comments at a press conference in Belfast yesterday where he predicted "a clear Yes vote" in the referendums North and South.
He said a peace settlement had to include prisoners. He could accept that victims of the IRA were outraged and he regretted the hurt republicans had inflicted. However, the victims of "state terrorism" were not getting a look in. Those victims deserved "the same embrace" as the victims of republicanism and loyalism.
He said the major achievement of recent years was that IRA weapons had been taken out of commission and put in dumps. Sinn Fein would use its influence and its best endeavours to take all the guns out of Irish politics, as there could only be a settlement when all guns were taken out of the situation. "When that will happen, and how that will happen, is a matter for those who have the guns."
He said, however, that there could be no preconditions on any section of the electorate when it came to getting positions in the executive of the assembly. All those elected would have to meet each other on a basis of equality.
Mr Adams said as far as he was concerned a Yes vote of "50 per cent plus one" was all that was required, as this was the norm in referendums. All the other mathematical versions played up the absurdity of partition.
"Since Ireland was partitioned we have been told that majority rules. We have never been told that majority doesn't rule, and I am against majoritarianism. We are being told in some way nationalists' votes are being devalued."
He believed No campaigners were hoping "to springboard" from the referendum into an attempt to wreck the entire process in the assembly.
He said he was conscious of the difficulties unionists faced in participating in a process of change, adding: "But I want to assure unionists that we have no wish to inflict upon anyone what was inflicted on us. We have all suffered as a result of the failures of the past."
He said: "In these remarks today, we are trying to reach out to unionism and say to them: `You don't need to trust the Sinn Fein leadership, you need to trust yourselves, and we want to come to you in a good-faith way, and try and work all of this out'."
As a Sinn Fein leader, he had no reason to trust any unionist leader or British prime minister. "But I want to do business with them. I want to trust them because I have no more right to live on this island than they have."
Mr Adams said it was not possible to say that the war was over when there were huge numbers of British troops and RUC on the streets in his constituency. Sinn Fein was doing its best to bring the war to an end because that was what the peace strategy was about.