Sinn Fein's success in the Westminster and local elections in the North is a mandate for the IRA to disband, party leader Gerry Adams said today.
Mr Adams also added that he would like to see closure on the peace process impasse during Tony Blair's remaining term in office.
Speaking in Dublin, Mr Adams said that his April 6th appeal to the IRA to embrace politics to achieve its aim was endorsed by the Sinn Fein tally of five MPs and 126 district council seats. "My call and my appeal was a public one and therefore I do interpret Sinn Fein's result as an endorsement of that call.
"In this the final phase of Tony Blair's premiership, we have a very unique opportunity to sort out all of these matters. But it needs a collective push to move it forward.
Northern Secretary, Peter Hain
"Mr Blair has been very good on some of these core issues. It is my view that he wants to bed them down. He wants it to be part of his legacy and therefore there is a relatively limited time, the time to bed it down is now."
Mr Adams declined to comment further on his appeal to the IRA except to "express my hope again that the response will be a positive response". He said that huge challenges lay ahead for the Irish and British Governments to push for a final settlement and achieve progress in areas like equality, demilitarisation, justice and human rights and rights for Irish language speakers.
Mr Adams said that he had asked the new Northern Secretary Peter Hain to be more co-operative than his predecessor Paul Murphy, in assisting an inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
Mr Adams was speaking as his party launched its campaign to oppose the EU constitution in a forthcoming referendum.
PA