Adams: IRA won't be active

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams tonight said his party was now on an election footing in Northern Ireland.

As he prepared to meet Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble at Stormont, the West Belfast MP also insisted that everyone in the Northern Ireland peace process needed to commit themselves to a collective effort to make the Good Friday Agreement work.

He also urged the British and Irish governments to be “reasonable and rational” about what could be achieved in the coming weeks.

Mr Adams told party colleagues at a meeting on the All-Ireland agenda at Stormont: “What I am trying to say is of course there are challenges and of course the end of this process will end up with the situation where there won’t be armed groups, including the IRA, active on this island, that we will have an entirely demilitarised and peaceful situation.

“But that is a journey that we are all on.

“I will meet Mr Trimble after this meeting and we will discuss all of these issues and I think that it is fair to say that there are elements within unionism who clearly, despite hesitancy in the past, want this to work.

“My main message in these remarks in terms of collective responsibility is aimed at Tony Blair and the Taoiseach.

“Let’s be reasonable and rational about what is do-able in the immediate term, particularly when others have failed to live up to their responsibilities.”

Tonight’s meeting between Mr Adams and Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble was their third face-to-face encounter in 12 days.

Intense efforts have been taking place in London, Dublin and Belfast to revive the Stormont Assembly and power sharing executive and to enable Stormont elections to take place this autumn.

However republicans and the British and Irish governments have been anxious to dampen down expectations of a swift breakthrough.