The following is an edited extract of the address by the SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, to his party's annual conference:
Before we address the crisis of the moment in the agreement, let us not forget that its institutions were working, delivering for all the people. Issues and ideas that would not have seen the light of day under direct rule were being promoted, particularly by SDLP Ministers and MLAs.
But it was not on the Executive alone that we delivered change. On the Policing Board, Alex Attwood, Joe Byrne and Eddie McGrady are drivers of the Patten agenda.
Their task as champions of Patten was made harder by the fact that the parties opposed to change had extra seats courtesy of Sinn Féin. And yet they have delivered more change in the last year than in the previous 80 put together.
Make no mistake, we signed up to the agreement and its commitment to work in good faith to ensure the success of each and every one of its arrangements.
That included the policing arrangements coming from the agreement as much as its political institutions. And we are the only party to do so. Sinn Féin is not on the board. The DUP is not at the Executive or the North South Ministerial Council. As for the UUP, they delayed the establishment of the institutions, impeded their operation and threatened serial withdrawal.
David Trimble tells us that this is all part of his plan to save the agreement. But it's about as effective as Dermot Nesbitt's intervention to save Seamus Heaney's house.When leaders claim to defend that which they assault, it causes confusion among their own supporters and consternation among ours.
Our role is not to point the finger of blame, it is to point the way forward. Our approach has been clear-headed and sure-footed.
The Assembly might be suspended, but the agreement is not. The two governments have to press ahead implementing it. To reassure the pro-agreement constituency that it is being upheld. To show anti-agreement politicians that they cannot veto its democratically mandated changes.
Anti-agreement politicians please note: you may be able to collapse the Assembly but you cannot collapse the agreement. London and Dublin will work together more closely and deeply than ever before to ensure its implementation.
There is not just one confidence issue - and the confidence questions do not run only in one direction.
Nationalists have reason to question the "now you see it now you don't" pro-agreement leadership of unionism. And nationalists are perplexed when they compare indignant unionist reaction to republican violence with the indifferent response to loyalism's relentless attacks on Catholics.
Unionists have genuine confidence issues too. The continued existence and activity of the IRA, marked by a series of events and allegations, has only served to unnerve pro-agreement unionists and undermine the institutions.
There is no point in dismissing such concerns as a figment of unionist paranoia. Nor do formulaic denials suffice: even how the process is managed raises confidence issues. I do not believe that the confidence drop is in the agreement itself. People are not vexed by the Executive, disturbed by the Assembly or outraged by the NSMC. It is more about the way that governments appear to be running after paramilitaries. Humouring hard men and bartering bits of the agreement and things not in the agreement. Private lines to private armies will not restore the necessary confidence.
The approach that gave the agreement is the approach that will save the agreement. We need all of the parties around the table to deal with all of the confidence issues. And there can be no argument or ambiguity about the fact that sustaining and developing the agreement into the future requires an end to paramilitarism.
It is not just a matter of individual party leaders envisaging a future without individual armed groups. We need to collectively affirm that the agreement entails a future without paramilitaries. Each of them specifically and all of them collectively.
In terms of parties being able to assure each other and the public that they are still all on for all of the agreement, how better to do that than to agree an implementation compact that sets out a programme for the delivery and fulfilment of all outstanding provisions of the agreement? Let us round up every aspect of the agreement not yet delivered or developed and determine the agreed means and timescales for their total implementation.
There are all too many, but to name a few: the Bill of Rights. The All-Ireland Charter of Rights. The Criminal Justice Review. The North-South Parliamentary Forum. Getting the British-Irish Parliamentary Forum on a proper footing. There is still shortfall in the social, economic and cultural provisions, and the agreement's promise to victims has yet to be fully honoured.
Let all parties and both governments agree a clear path for the devolution of policing and justice powers.
The SDLP have also called for the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation to be reconvened. It can add real value to the work that I have just outlined.
First, it reminds those who need it that the agreement was mandated by the people of Ireland, North and South.
Second, it can clarify for those who need it that an end to republican paramilitaries is not just a negative demand of unionism or an unwarranted insistence by the British government. It is a positive requirement of the people of Ireland and the agreement they mandated.
Third, there are unfinished business and unfulfilled expectations from the forum's previous work. When the forum met before, Sinn Féin would not agree the principle of consent. But when they accepted the agreement, they accepted consent. Meeting now, the forum could conclude definitively on it.
As leader of a party that has always believed in unity by consent and did more to achieve the agreement than any other let me be clear: I am 100 per cent for a united Ireland. I am 100 per cent for the agreement. Neither diminishes nor qualifies the other.
I can also state that I know others who are 100 per cent for the Union with Britain and also 100 per cent for the agreement. That's the strength of the agreement. For the SDLP, the agreement is a covenant of honour between two legitimate traditions on this island. Its principles and its provisions must prevail for all, regardless of the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.
The agreement provides for a referendum on the question of a united Ireland. If a majority of people in the North vote for a united Ireland, then there will be a united Ireland. That is what the agreement provides.
But the SDLP is clear that in that united Ireland, the agreement will endure. The institutions in the North will stand. The British-Irish structures will continue. The equality guarantees and human rights protections will continue.
Our vision of a united Ireland is based on equality. The SDLP believes that the rights, protections and inclusion that nationalists sought within Northern Ireland, while it is in the UK, must equally be guaranteed to unionists within a united Ireland.