It's been a long time coming but the reality is that this process is at a crossroads.

For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms.

We have to make sure the Good Friday Agreement works.

Republican patience with how unionism deals with the political institutions, and with key issues like equality and human rights, will be tested because, obviously, there will be a battle a day on these matters. So lets face up to all of this with our eyes wide open.

We can be revisionist, and that's a good thing to be at times, but we shouldn't airbrush our history, so we can only make judgments in the objective conditions of that time.

For good or ill, I'm a person of leadership. I do my best. I don't dodge responsibility.

The days of humiliation, of second-class citizens and of inequality are over and gone forever.