The following is an edited version of the leader's speech delivered by the Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams.
The process of change has been set to one side. A lot has happened since our last ardfheis.
Sinn Féin has become the largest pro-agreement party in the North. In the South, increasing numbers of people are looking to us as an alternative to the self-serving politics of the conservative parties. Little wonder that the more hysterical of our detractors are regurgitating the old propaganda nonsense of the past.
More importantly and of greater concern is that the process of change has been set to one side. 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.
Let's look briefly at the situation a decade ago. 1993 was a violent year.
Eighty-eight people lost their lives and many others were injured and maimed. Sixteen people died in the Shankill bombing and the Greysteel attacks alone.
It was also the year of the Hume-Adams initiative. Remember, this party was censored, denied the use of municipal buildings in Dublin city, and party colleagues and family members were killed. John Hume was stigmatised for daring to talk to us. His detractors included leading members of the coalition government and of his own party.
As you all know John Hume announced his retirement last month. I want to pay tribute to John. I extend best wishes to him and Pat, and wish them well for the future.
John Major, the British prime minister, was vehemently denying any knowledge of the Hume-Adams initiative. Predictably the unionist leadership declared that they would not participate in dialogue. In November 1993, Ian Paisley announced that unionism "faced the greatest threat to the Union since the Home Rule crisis".
I rehearse all of this today only to underscore the massive changes that have occurred and the progress that has been made.
While there are now very real and immediate difficulties in the peace process I can say without any fear of contradiction that we are still in a far better place than we were 10 years ago.
I can say without fear of contradiction that Irish republicans have driven that process while others have tried to bring it to a halt. We sought to overcome rather than sustain difficulties and differences. Therein lies the key to the resolution of the current difficulties.
Firstly, everyone genuinely committed to the process has to recognise that the current situation is untenable in the longer term.
Secondly, we have to resolve that the improvements, hard won by dint of huge effort, will not be destroyed by those whose only vision of the future is the past.
Thirdly, there has to be an ongoing process of sustainable change. In other words the peace process must deliver.
In November, Ian Paisley's DUP emerged as the strongest unionist party. That shift to the right within unionism occurred because the UUP leadership allowed the rejectionists to set the agenda.
And worse than that, the British government acquiesced to, and at times encouraged, this approach so that the process of change became dependant on the whim of a unionist leader constantly looking over his shoulder at his rejectionist rivals.
Thus, for the last six years rather than fully enforcing the agreement London has proceeded only at a pace, which unionism and its own government agencies, have been prepared to tolerate. This is the core difficulty in this process. And now we are at our greatest crisis because we have no process of change.
Any attempt to bring about equality is bound to be very difficult. And this isn't just about the section of people in the North who are unionist. I think that they know that. But the senior policy-makers within the British system and particularly those unaccountable branches of the so-called security agencies are entirely anti-Irish, anti-republican and anti-democratic.
Despite their protestations to the contrary, so far the Good Friday agreement has been too big a challenge for the British government, or perhaps more accurately it is a bridge too far for its agencies.
The outworking of the British government's strategy was brought very much into stark profile when Mr Trimble aborted the sequence of initiatives agreed on October 21st last year, after republicans honoured commitments as part of an agreed sequence of statements and actions.
Despite what happened subsequently I want to make it clear that I stand over the remarks I made that day. I set out a peaceful direction for republicans because I believe that is the proper position.
I will argue that position with anyone, in any place and at any time. But the British prime minister and the Taoiseach must deliver also. They must stand up to the rejectionists. They too must take risks for peace.
The process of change and the rights of citizens cannot wait for Ian Paisley to embrace the concept of equality. The two governments have to face up to that reality. They also have to face up to the reality that republicans have very little confidence in them and their commitment to the Good Friday agreement at this time.
We, who want to see the maximum change, are called upon to take the greatest risks.
So 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.
In fact the IRA leadership clearly put its position on the public record in May last year when it said that the full and irreversible implementation of the agreement and other commitments will provide a context in which it can proceed to definitively set aside arms to further its political objectives.
Such a commitment would have been unimaginable 10 years ago. So too would the last decade of IRA cessations.
The opportunity provided by these developments should not be wasted. This party is actively working to ensure this.
But threats, ultimatums, or the imposing of preconditions can be no part of this. Holding up a process which is essentially about basic rights and modest entitlements is totally counter-productive.
No matter how daunting, tedious and frustrating this process may be for the governments and the rest of us, there is no alternative way forward. The resolution of difficulties will only be found through dialogue and keeping commitments. Efforts to put Sinn Féin under pressure are a waste of time.
We must acknowledge that unionists feel threatened by republicanism and nationalism.
Unionists fear that if given the chance republicans and nationalists would treat them as second-class citizens. We would not, and we will not. The days of second-class citizens are over. When we demand equality, we demand equality for everyone.
Sooner or later, we and the unionists must begin a real dialogue, an anti-sectarian dialogue, designed to move us all beyond the impasse of the present into a living, hopeful future in which they, as well as we, tell the British government to butt-out; that no longer will London, which is not trusted or respected by any constituency in Ireland, set the terms for us.
The DUP is now the senior unionist party. The logic of its position is that it should be in government with Sinn Féin. Republicans are not naive about the DUP.
We know that they want to minimise the process of change. But the DUP also knows that if it wants a return to sustainable devolved administration that it will be with Sinn Féin in government and it will be with the all-Ireland model contained in the Good Friday agreement.
So, our party is prepared to explore the DUP position, not because we have any illusions about Mr Paisley's position, but because we have confidence in our own position and because one of our objectives is for a strategic alliance with unionism for the benefit of all our people.
We recognise and respect the mandate of the DUP - they must recognise and respect our mandate. So too must the parties here in the South.
Between now and June and the local government and European Union elections we can expect more nonsense from Minister McDowell. Mr McDowell doesn't know it, but his lá has tiocfaidhed.
The Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil should not be part of this short-sighted anti-republican agenda. These elections are important for us and the other parties but they are not more important than the peace process.
The politics of Sinn Féin's peace strategy is to empower people. But the past decade has also been the decade of tribunals when the corrupt relationship between leading politicians in this State and big business was exposed as never before.
Most of the scandals centred on planning. Corrupt politicians, land speculators and property developers profited from the misery of others.
Communities suffered from atrociously sub-standard housing in bleak estates without facilities. They endured the worst of the drugs scourge and the poverty and the unemployment of the 1980s and early 90s. This party stood shoulder to shoulder with those people.
Since then of course and for the last decade the wealth of this State has been greater than at any time in its history. We welcome that. Do we have better schools, better hospitals, affordable homes? Have people with disabilities benefited? No.
Over 27,000 people are languishing on waiting lists. Staff in accident and emergency departments are struggling to cope.
There is a bed shortage and a staff shortage in our public hospitals while the private health business flourishes. I believe it is an obscenity that a public patient diagnosed with a serious illness requiring surgery must join a massive queue while those who have the money to do so can skip the queue and receive private hospital care almost immediately.
That is the reality of the two-tier health service in this State. It is wrong. Let us send a clear message from this ardfheis that Sinn Féin is in the business of righting these wrongs.
Equality is the key. We are committed to building the Ireland that Bobby Sands, Máire Drumm, James Connolly and Pádraig Pearse and their comrades gave their lives for, an Ireland of equals, a united and free Ireland.
The downside of the 100 years of Sinn Féin is that we have yet to achieve our objectives. The upside is that we are capable of doing so. In fact what this generation of republicans is attempting is unprecedented.
We have a lot to do.
Let's go out and do it.