Gerry Adams

to build political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and win support for those goals internationally.

It's good to be here with your heroes and heroines,

Essentially this issue is about the need for the British government to both accept responsibility for what has happened and what is happening and also to end political policing.

We have unfulfilled commitments on human rights, which the government said they were going to put in place, in terms of democratic rights and cultural matters.

Perhaps just once in a fairly bleak international situation ... maybe hope and history is reigning in Ireland

I have set out my position. I am not going to move from it. It is my hope that Republicans right across the island and elsewhere will embrace that position,

When the 10 hunger strikers died, there was strong support from Cuba, and especially from President Fidel Castro,

courageous and confident initiative.

We are in this particular situation because once again unionists threaten the institutions and Dr. Reid moved to accommodate them.

have said that the gear that they put away matched the estimates that the intelligence agencies of both (British and Irish) governments provided.

You asserted the legitimacy of the right of the people of this island to freedom and independence. Many of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice.

When others stood idly by, you and your families gave your all, in defence of a risen people and in pursuit of Irish freedom and unity.

We are totally committed to ending partition and to creating the conditions for unity and independence.

The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.

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

The catalyst for much of this change is the growing support for republicanism.

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

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

In this context the British and Irish governments will have to promote a new, imaginative and dynamic alternative in which both governments will share power in the north.

But I also hold the very strong view that republicans need to lead by example.

One man's transparency is another's humiliation.

Hugging trees has a calming effect on me. I'm talking about enormous trees that will be there when we are all dead and gone. I've hugged trees in every part of this little island.

We have a range of candidates who are bedded in their local constituencies over quite a long period of time, who are working on a whole range of social and economic issues as well as the big national question, as well as the peace process, as well as the whole issue of Irish unity -- so we're going to do well,

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

Now is the time for peace, justice and rebuilding,