Peace process - All sides must make final push

In a strong appeal to the republican movement yesterday, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern insisted that a core element of the Good Friday Agreement is the transition to peaceful and democratic means. He emphasised that people are entitled to know the intentions of their prospective partners in the process.

Put simply, unionists are entitled to an assurance that the Provisional IRA is committed irrevocably to the democratic process, but he also made it clear that republicans are entitled to know that unionists will implement what was agreed without the kind of reservations that have frustrated the work of the Agreement's institutions over the past five years.

Sinn Féin leaders committed themselves to use all their influence to persuade the Provisional IRA to decommission their weapons. This inevitably involved a transitional period in which trust had to be built up.

The Provisional IRA has had plenty of time to evaluate the benefits of the Agreement with the release of prisoners (many of whom enjoyed enormous remission of sentences) convicted of heinous crimes in which innocent people men, women and children were murdered and maimed.

There is no room in democratic politics for paramilitary forces threatening to take the law into their own hands if they do not get their way. That is the stuff of dictatorships.

Of course, Sinn Féin would like everyone to believe otherwise, but the continued existence of the Provisional IRA, without an unequivocal renunciation of violence, amounts to a democratic threat. There is no room for confusion on this issue.

Unionist leaders have recognised the sincerity of their Sinn Féin counterparts in trying to make the Good Friday Agreement work. The Taoiseach indicated that the recent IRA statement amounted to real progress, but there are still three issues on which further clarification is necessary.

It would be a great pity if these issues are not cleared up now, because there is a danger of a political vacuum which could be exploited by opponents of the Agreement who have sought to destroy it from the outset.

Today we commemorate the anniversary of 1916 Rising. Mr Ahern quoted yesterday from the speech made by his predecessor, Eamon de Valera, in the same place on a similar occasion in April 1933.

If we are true to the ideals of the leaders of 1916 Ireland, he said, we must be true, not to territory, but to the living people of the island, and all of them should be cherished equally. We should make ourselves oblivious to historical differences and seek resolutely to "abolish the memory of all past dissensions".

That is as true today as it was 70 years ago.