Sinn Féin expects to see a united Ireland within 14 years - in time for the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, Mr Martin McGuinness, the Northern Ireland Education Minister, said yesterday.
There had been "a sea change" of attitude all over Ireland and people were fed up with the partitionist approach, Mr Mc Guinness said.
These were exciting times for the island of Ireland, and people were living through "a very important period of Irish history", he said.
The power-sharing institutions in the North were entering a period of new stability. The Ulster Unionist Party appeared to have stabilised itself within these institutions.
There was now equality and power-sharing in the North between nationalists/republicans and unionists.
"I believe a united Ireland is now inevitable. It is only a matter of time . . . it is eminently achievable," Mr McGuinness said.
Asked to put a time-scale on it, he said people could expect to see a united Ireland "by the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising."
However, while the unionist veto had been broken, a united Ireland was not something Sinn Féin wanted to bring about by "galloping unionists into a united Ireland", he said.
"We would hope to convince a sizeable section of unionists that it's in their best interests."
Mr McGuinness was speaking during a constituency visit to Tralee in support of the Sinn Féin candidate in Kerry North, Mr Martin Ferris.
Sinn Féin expected to take three seats in the general election - in Kerry North with Martin Ferris and in Dublin South-West with Sean Crowe as well as retaining Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin's seat in Cavan Monaghan.
The party was also confident there were other constituencies where it could do well.
Pro-Agreement unionists criticised the remarks.
The North Down MP, Lady Hermon, dismissed Mr McGuinness's prediction, saying: "That's just silly."
She added: "He is speaking to his own constituency. I don't think it's a secret that there will be a further act of decommissioning, so I imagine that this sort of talk is always repeated when republicans are being told bad news concerning decommissioning - bad news in their terms, good news in ours."
The North's Minister of the Environment, Mr Dermot Nesbitt, said: "Each generation will decide its own history, as Seamus Mallon once said. Martin McGuinness is living in the realm of Europe of the 1930s when they tried to change borders. I don't think it will happen."
Anti-Belfast Agreement unionists also dismissed Mr McGuinness's comments as a "pipe-dream".
The Ulster Unionist MP for Lagan Valley, Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, said republican aspirations were just not realistic.
"They did not succeed in 1916 in achieving an all-Ireland republic and they will not achieve it 100 years later, either. Mr McGuinness is dreaming a pipe-dream.
"The reality is that the greater number of people in Northern Ireland will not vote for a united Ireland," he said.
The DUP's justice spokesman, Mr Ian Paisley jnr, said the Education Minister was "plainly wrong".
"Now we know why Martin McGuinness failed his 11-plus. His maths is plainly wrong.
"He obviously likes to say these things to infuriate unionists, but statements like this only serve to make a united Ireland even more unthinkable and unworkable," he insisted.