Sinn Fein is committed to rebuilding politics and the peace process,the party's president Mr Gerry Adams pledged at the weekend. He said this was "the most important thing that any of us can do at this time in our history". He said he believed that the IRA was "serious about their support for a genuine peace process".
Addressing a meeting in Monaghan of his party's elected representatives, the insisted that "real, lasting and permanent peace" was possible. He also told the gathering that he could foresee a future without the IRA.
But that was only possible if all parties to the Belfast Agreement, the British and Irish governments, unionists and republicans, strove to make politics work.
The Sinn Féin president made his remarks in response to the speech by Mr Tony Blair in Belfast on October 17th in which the British Prime Minister claimed that continued IRA activity and the political process were incompatible. Blaming IRA activity for contributing to the collapse of trust between the parties, Mr Blair said that the Belfast Agreement had reached a fork in the road. The troubled political process could not work unless the Provisionals' threat of violence was removed.
Mr Adams countered this at the weekend by saying that, as far as republicans were concerned, "IRA cessations effectively moved the army [Provisional IRA] out of the picture and allowed the rest of us to begin an entirely new process".
He also rejected Mr Blair's claims that Sinn Féin had used the IRA as a bargaining chip to try to obtain additional political concessions from the British government and from unionists.
"Far from using the IRA as leverage during negotiation, we sought to have the Good Friday agreement implemented, not only because that is our obligation, not only because that is the right thing, but also because that fitted into a strategy of creating an alternative to war and a means of sustaining and anchoring the peace process," he said.
However, Mr Adams also went out of his way to endorse key points made by Mr Blair in his Belfast speech 11 days ago. Using somewhat complex language, he said that the "ongoing focus on alleged IRA activities" had added to the difficulties within unionism regarding the political process.
"Whatever we think about the unionist willingness to embrace the process of change, the unrelenting concentration on activities, which it is claimed involve Irish republicans, are grist to the mill of those within political unionism or indeed within the British system in Ireland who are opposed to change. It is also destabilising those who countenance change."
He added: "Whatever we, or for that matter the IRA, say about these allegations, wall-to-wall daily coverage in the media - fed by stories planted from within the British system - ensures that the denials are dismissed or doubted by even the more progressive elements."
Sinn Féin read a great deal more into the prime minister's speech than a simple call for IRA disbandment, he said. It was "serious and detailed" and contained "positive elements".
Mr Blair's bald assessment that the North's Catholics were second-class citizens and that the vast majority wanted the Stormont institutions to remain in place was welcomed by Mr Adams. Significantly, he added that the prime minister was right when he said that the time for transition had come to an end and that there was a need for "acts of completion".
Mr Adams continued: "He [Mr Blair\] said that the British government thought the Good Friday agreement should be implemented in one fell swoop, instead of a concession to one side here and a concession to the other there. I agree on that as well."
The Sinn Féin president repeated a list of demands in relation to implementation of the accord, especially on matters of human rights, justice, equality and policing. He concentrated on policing matters, saying that an "acceptable" policing service was "crucial for all sections of our people in the North". It was also in the better interests of all of the people of this island. "If power can be transferred on a range of key issues, there is no reason why policing and justice cannot be devolved on the same basis."
Hinting at possible Sinn Féin involvement, he said that he could "conceive of a world in which it would be appropriate for Sinn Féin to join the Policing Board and participate fully in the policing arrangements on a democratic basis".
Mr Adams called for all parties to the agreement to deal with reality. He said that ultimatums and calls for IRA disbandment were as unrealistic as his hopes "for an end to British rule in Ireland yesterday".
He said that Sinn Féin's political objectives would be realised by virtue of a political process and "not by way of ultimatums from me or any other Irish person".
He added: "Similarly, the IRA is never going to disband in response to ultimatums from the British government or David Trimble."
He emphasised that the logic of the Belfast Agreement put all parties in a "different place" and he repeated that he wanted to see an end to all armed groups in Ireland - an aim which had to be shared by what he called "every thinking republican".
In another key section of his speech Mr Adams attempted to place a focus on the British government in general and on Mr Blair in particular. "Part of the problem for those of us who have to manage this process is that Irish republicanism is seen by the British establishment and its system, quite correctly, as being against its long-term interests. This is because it interprets these interests in a very narrow and short-sighted way. It sees unionism as an ally, even with all its imperfections."
He urged Mr Blair to "see Britain's strategic interest being best served by the democratic resolution of the long-standing quarrel between the people of our two islands".
"His task in the short term has to be to continue the process of peacemaking. The Good Friday agreement remains the only show in town. This party doesn't need to be told that. But the unionists do. So, too, does the British system."