IRA disbandment not promises are needed to get devolved government restored to Northern Ireland, Ulster Unionist Party leader Mr David Trimble said today.
Words like "the war is over" that might once have meant something cut no ice today, he told the party annual conference in Derry.
Neither would deeds, if, again they were "grudging and minimalist".
Unionists would not be satisfied with some "phantom disbandment". The paramilitaries really had to go away. "Their day is over," said Mr Trimble.
The message was also for loyalist paramilitaries, as well, he said. "People are fed up to the back-teeth with the racketeering and feuding that is disguised as loyalist.
"To those still addicted to violence, drugs and criminality, we say in the name of God, go."
But it was republicans Mr Trimble focused on as he gave the Prime Minister his considered response to his Belfast speech on Thursday.
Mr Blair had pointed the finger unambiguously at the IRA, said Mr Trimble.
The real question now was how he would follow through in terms of actions in the coming months. "He must not repeat the mistake of government actions in advance or in response to republican promises.
"This time he must insist on completed acts." He added: "It is time for conclusions, time for the transition that republicans say they are making to be completed."
Mr Trimble had no intention of going back to his party seeking backing for a return to the power-sharing administration "until it is demonstrably clear that this time obligations have been fulfilled."
To be fair, he said, republicans had done some things - not enough - but they had moved. They were not "wholly unreconstructed" but during the past spring and summer the evidence of "serious backsliding" had been overwhelming.
To Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams he said: "It's up to you, only this time do not expect promises or beginnings to do the trick." He said he was not downhearted to be out of office again following the discovery of a republican spy ring at Stormont. "We will just roll up our sleeves again and get down again to the job of forcing republicans to behave democratically."
The raid on Sinn Féin's office at Stormont, he said, had not been just another crisis in the peace process, it was "the moment when the republican spin machine ran out of road."
Earlier Mr Trimble said he can see no purpose in round-table talks between the Northern Ireland parties.
Mr Trimble was responding to Sinn Féin who yesterday called for the Irish and British Governments to convene talks in order to address the current crisis in the peace process.