A leading Belfast republican, Mr Brian Keenan, has said there will be no renegotiation of the Belfast Agreement, and if it falls, it falls. He has also said the IRA is not party to the agreement and is under no obligation to decommission.
He was speaking at the initial Easter commemoration ceremony in the Republic in the village of Inniskeen, Co Monaghan, on Saturday afternoon.
He said the IRA had shown discipline, unity of purpose and its determination to give the peace process the best chance it could. "People ask us to make gestures, what better gesture than the cessation being disciplined, being maintained and our guns are silent. Maybe Tony Blair should make the same gesture in Serbia."
He said the British government had the power to implement the Belfast Agreement but had failed to confront Orangeism. "We are very, very frustrated, very angry now and very, very, very impatient. There will be no magic rabbits out of the hat.
"They either honour the Good Friday Agreement or the Good Friday Agreement falls. None of us want to see the peace process go down the tubes, but it seems to me when the British don't have a quick answer that they play the Orange card and turn on republicans. Well, we have been there before, we have been on our own before, and if we have to be on our own again we will be on our own again."
He said the fundamental reasons for the conflict remained. While this was so, and the British government played games, then he had no doubt there would be conflict.
There was criticism of the Taoiseach on decommissioning. Mr Keenan said he wanted Mr Ahern to say whether there was consensus in the peace process, "because this same Taoiseach seems to me to sometimes go off at tangents and plays a game I don't seem to know the rules of, talking of things like decommissioning must happen. I don't know where they get this word decommissioning, because it strikes me they mean it like it is a surrender. There will be no surrender.
"The present Taoiseach seems to think it is a good game to play. Well we have seen Free State leadership come and go, well we will be here forever." He also warned Mr Ahern he had "better understand that he cannot treat Irish history like this and he cannot treat the republican fraternity like this because we are strongest in adversity . . . we are going to win this struggle because the reason for the struggle remains."
In his address to about 120 people, Mr Keenan also said the dissidents had won nothing for the cause of Irish freedom and the work of republicans now was to strengthen the mandate of Sinn Fein with more votes and more seats.