All of Sinn Féin's elected representatives meet in Monaghan today for a keynote speech by Mr Gerry Adams, which could outline the republican response to Mr Tony Blair's demand for an end to paramilitarism.
Mr Adams and his closest advisers were working on the draft of a speech to be delivered to his party's elected representatives from both sides of the Border this morning. Sources in Belfast yesterday indicated that the British Prime Minister was impatient for a considered view from the republican movement.
Mr Blair flew to Belfast last week to press for an end to all paramilitary activity. The British position is that normalisation and political progress is now impossible against the background of paramilitary activity.
"We cannot carry on with the IRA half in or half out of this process. Not just because it isn't right any more. It won't work anymore," Mr Blair said.
He pledged that the peace process would prove unstoppable if paramilitary activity was halted. His speech was viewed as closely considered and personal, and indicated Downing Street's belief that inch-by-inch negotiations, so long the trademark of the process, was not an option in the current crisis.
There have been few hints so far concerning republican thinking on the demands for the IRA and other groups to be stood down. Senior figures have indicated that rapid progress on policing and justice issues could pose enormous challenges.
"The key to it is to ensure that the agreement is implemented in full. The challenge that we then pose to all our armed groups with this society is an absolutely mighty one," said Mr Martin McGuinness last week.
Mr Adams said progress would require risk-taking on all sides while the Derry Assembly member Mr Mitchel McLaughlin told MPs at Westminster on Thursday the IRA "could be removed from the equation" if the peace process was placed back on track.
"They [the IRA\] have made a very significant contribution to the peace process along the way. It is my view that a legitimate objective of the peace process is the elimination, the disappearance, the removal of all paramilitary activity," he said.
Sinn Féin is keen for an implementation timetable for the agreement. Mr Adams has said his party believes the British government "has yet to complete its obligations".
The political atmosphere has changed in Belfast following the appointment of additional Junior Ministers to the Northern Ireland Office to help administer direct rule. There is a fear too, especially among nationalists, that the appointment of Mr Paul Murphy as Northern Secretary - widely seen as a safe pair of hands - could signal preparation for a long period of Westminster rule.
Mr Murphy, on his first full day in office, yesterday completed the traditional public walkabout at a shopping centre near Bangor, Co Down.
He has also held brief talks with Mr David Trimble and Mr Mark Durkan, the former First and Deputy First Ministers.