Sinn Fein has demonstrated the ability to play a leadership role as part of a popular movement towards peace, equality and justice.

Making peace, I have found, is much harder than making war.

You can only judge anything that happened in the times, in the times that that happened.

Sinn Fein has the potential and capacity to become the vehicle for the attainment of republican objectives.

The last months, weeks and days have seen accelerating discussions, involving the DUP for the first time, about a comprehensive agreement which would see all outstanding matters dealt with and the Good Friday Agreement implemented in full.

The unionists also for their part, want to minimise the potential for change, not only on the equality agenda but on the issues of sovereignty and ending the union.

It will always be a battle a day between those who want maximum change and those who want to maintain the status quo.