Sinn Féin's Mr Martin McGuinness has said that his party accepts neither responsibility nor embarrassment in relation to the deepening political crisis in Northern Ireland.
Speaking to reporters in Derry, Mr McGuinness said: "We do not accept any responsibility for the crisis at the moment.
"It has been created directly by the inability within unionism to come to terms with the type of opportunity the Good Friday agreement promises and people like Jeffrey Donaldson and David Burnside are less concerned about what they would hope the IRA were at than their innate opposition to sharing power with Catholics."
Mr McGuinness rejected the suggestion his party's political standing had been undermined by last Friday's police raid on its office at Stormont.
"Our credibility is not in ruins, under no circumstances.
"We have shown by our contribution to this process that we were the initiators of the process, that we are absolutely committed to the peace process and are fully committed to seeing the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement.
"There are people out there trying to knock us down all the time within the British military establishment and within unionism.
"We don't have any difficulty in facing up to that, but in doing so we intend to point up for everyone the real reason why we are in a crisis at the moment.
"That is because the political leadership of unionism - and I make a clear distinction between them and ordinary people at grassroots level - are not prepared to share power with Catholics," he said.
Asked if he believed IRA spies were collecting intelligence materials, Mr McGuinness replied: "I have no idea but what I do know is that for the last 10 years, the Northern Ireland Office have been bugging our houses, our phones, our gardens and bugging our cars.
"They've actually admitted it. Mo Mowlam admitted it, when she was Secretary of State, that she authorised military intelligence operatives to bug a car being used by Gerry Adams and myself when we were running around the country trying to save the Good Friday agreement.
"Also over the last number of years, Ulster Unionist and DUP leaders have had all sorts of leaked documents out of the NIO.
"I have never seen one person ever appear in court for all that," Mr McGuinness said.
"In fact, Ian Paisley has had more leaked documents out of the NIO than I've had hot dinners," he said.
Questioned whether the republican movement had ended its "ballot box in one hand and Armalite in the other" strategy, Mr McGuinness said the only strategy Sinn Féin had was one for peace.
"This is a very serious situation for us all because the political leadership of unionism has delivered a very powerful message to me, a minister in the Northern Executive, that they don't want to share power on an inclusive basis, therefore they are opposed to the Good Friday agreement."