Adams shrugs off criticism and comes out fighting

Political Editor Harry McGee on the first shots in an election campaign.

It's the election stupid! With a slight distortion of one of Bill Clinton's more successful catchphrases, Gerry Adams adroitly kicked to touch the week-long criticism of his party and of the IRA.

While his denial last Thursday he was ever a member of the IRA may have reminded some of another long-lived Clinton phrase (in which the words never, sexual relations and that woman, all featured prominently), the Sinn Féin president was never going to allow the bombardment from his opponents steal any thunder from his major set-piece of the year.

Ergo, Mr Adams's 50-minute presidential address at the party's Árd Fhéis in the RDS on Saturday made no mention of the abduction of Bobby Tohill the previous weekend. And only an oblique reference to Bertie Ahern's fresh observations on Mr Adams's IRA pedigree.

Early on in the speech he set out his stall and disposed of all the dodgy stuff in two or three tight paragraphs.

"Little wonder that the more hysterical of our detractors are regurgitating the old propaganda nonsense of the past so today I will resist the temptation to react to the agenda put forward by our opponents. Today is a day for talking about our agenda."

Towards the end of the address, Adams turned his attention to the Minister for Justice, departing from the script to deliver a nasty little sting.

"Between now and June and the local government and European elections, we can expect more nonsense from Minister McDowell.

"Let's not take it too seriously. Michael does not know it yet, but his lá is tiocfaidh-ed" (It is a tricky enough one to translate but is essentially the SF version of 'hasta la vista baby'.) Unsurprisingly, the swipe got the biggest cheer of the evening.

The Sinn Féin agenda was not short of invective. But in terms of the blame game the focus had turned to the two governments.

Mr Ahern's Government was at the receiving end of the fiercest broadside from Sinn Féin since the Good Friday Agreement. In several pointed references Mr Adams charged the Irish government had failed to live up to its obligations under the Agreement.

In the week running up to the Árd Fhéis, Sinn Féin had been under intense pressure following Mr Tohill's botched abduction.

Unionists called for sanctions, and both governments had scorned the IRA's 'not authorised by the leadership' line.

Sinn Féin is now perceived as the problem party. With the changed context brought about by the rise of the DUP, the onus is on Sinn Féin to cede ground to move a moribund process forward. In one of the key lines of his address Mr Adams rejected such concessions.

"Efforts to put Sinn Féin under pressure are a waste of time. We will not be bullied or denied our rights," he declared to deafening approval.

His reasons for this were clear. Sinn Féin he argued, had honoured all its commitments, but others unionists and both governments had not. The overall message was stark. The IRA and republicans would make no further moves towards 'completion' until others moved in their own completion responsibilities.

"The IRA (put) its third, and largest, amount of arms beyond use. But (David) Trimble wasn't the only one to dishonour his commitments. He was joined by the British and Irish governments and neither of them have moved once inch since then on the undertakings they gave."

From Mr Adams' standpoint, the core difficulty in the process is that the British government has "proceeded only at a pace, which unionism and its own government agencies, have been prepared to tolerate."

The Government was not spared withering criticism. He muttered about the sway in the past and present of neo-unionist and conservative elements in the South who were "comfortable with the status quo".

And in terms of progress, the message was clear. Others would have to move first his party nor the IRA would buy into another repeat of last October.

In a crucial passage, he set out what looked like an ultimatum.

"There can be no doubt if the two governments apply themselves to acts of completion of the Good Friday Agreement then others must do likewise."

There is no doubt that the 'others' refers to the IRA. In plain language, there would be no putting the cart before the horse in the sequence, as far as the IRA was concerned.

The acts of completion for the Irish government include the release of prisoners (notably, the killers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe); a commitment to the status of the Irish language, and the right of northerners to participate in Irish political institutions.

Given the proximity of the elections a largish chunk of the speech was devoted to the South. It made for strange listening with the kind of themes that have become the familiar staple of speeches from other party leaders in the south.

The stuff about homeless people living within walking distance of the RDS and the Dáil, is one I have heard from at least three other senior opposition politicians in the past year.

But Sinn Féin's electoral rise in the South has been, and will continue to be, inexorable. The number of young delegates at the conference, compared to other parties, was shocking.

Despite the criticism of the previous week, Mr Adams again contrived to make Sinn Féin the focus of things.