Failure to implement the terms of the Belfast Agreement by the June 30th deadline would send out the wrong message, Mr Martin Ferris of Sinn Fein's ardchomhairle, told an estimated 1,000 people at the party's annual Wolfe Tone commemoration at Bodenstown, Co Kildare.
Mr Ferris, a former IRA prisoner and gun-runner, was recently elected to Kerry County Council and Tralee Urban Council, and also contested the European elections in Munster. In his address, he said the vacuum created in the North had been filled by a loyalist campaign of violence and intimidation against nationalists.
"Ten people have died. Men, women and children. Nationalist communities in east Antrim, south Antrim, Portadown, north Belfast and elsewhere are subject to threat and violence. Scores of families have been bombed and frightened from their homes. . .
"What message would failure on June 30th send to those involved in and behind these actions? They would sense victory, success; they would be encouraged. This cannot and must not be allowed to happen."
Mr Ferris said Sinn Fein had argued for a deadline for the implementation of the agreement to ensure that the obstruction and stalling were brought to an end.
"Non-implementation of the agreement suits unionist interests. They do not want change. They want to maintain the status quo. But peace, justice and stability demand change. A credible and effective conflict-resolution process requires change. There must be change if the peace process is to survive and develop towards a lasting peace settlement.
"The Good Friday agreement is the one chance we all have to change that. That chance must be acted on over the next two weeks. Time is running out. The rejectionists have no alternative. The Good Friday agreement is the common ground and provides the only way out of the present impasse. The next two weeks are critical if the Good Friday agreement is to survive.
"Sinn Fein will play its part. We will do our utmost to move the agreement on. We will hold to the terms of the agreement. It represents the hope for the future."
Mr Ferris said the executive, the all-Ireland ministerial council and the implementation bodies should all have been in place by October 31st last year.
"They have been persistently blocked by the UUP using a precondition which is not part of the agreement. If there had been such a precondition, Sinn Fein could not and would not have signed up to it."
Welcoming the speech made in Belfast last week by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, he said it clarified a number of vitally important points. "Specifically, we welcome his assertion that we must return to the Good Friday agreement. Sinn Fein has been arguing for that since May of last year. . .
"That is a binding agreement which we all made on Good Friday in 1998. It cannot be rewritten, it cannot be renegotiated, or interpreted in unionist terms. There is a democratic imperative to implement it. We will settle for nothing less.
"We also welcome Blair's statement that there are no preconditions to the establishment of the executive and that June 30th is a real deadline. I hope that Blair's comments will create a new focus and will drive us through the next phase of negotiations towards agreement by June 30th.
"For our part, Sinn Fein wants to resolve the current difficulties and move the process forward. The unionists cannot forever hold up progress. If they fail to rise to this challenge, and if they succeed in blocking the establishment of the institutions, then there can be no assembly and the governments have to implement all other aspects of the agreement.
"If unionists believe they can prevent implementation of the equality agenda, the governments must make clear that they cannot. We still need a new policing service, new anti-discrimination laws, the human rights commission, progress on demilitarisation and a justice agenda, and, crucially, the release of all political prisoners."
"The current Orange siege of Garvaghy Road, which is now over 350 days old, is part of a shameful tradition of sectarianism over 200 years old. There can be no place for such bigotry in the Ireland of the 21st century."
