The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said yesterday there was little hope for the peace process if the Ulster Unionist Party did not reverse its "no guns, no government" policy.
Mr Adams said Mr David Trimble's policy on armaments outlined at the party's annual conference was totally at odds with and contradicted the Belfast Agreement.
"If the UUP stays to that position and if the British government is not prepared to create conditions when entry to the process can move forward, then it appears to me the prospects of the Mitchell review moving forward are slim".
Speaking at the start of the party's Dublin South Central by-election campaign, Mr Adams said he hoped to meet the new Northern Ireland Secretary of State in the next few weeks.
Asked if he thought his appointment was a good thing for the peace process, Mr Adams said no one person would make or break the process, rather policy would determine its success. He hoped the appointment would see a refocusing and re-energising at this very critical time.
Mr Adams said the election of six Sinn Fein councillors in Dublin earlier this year and the significant increase in the party's vote across the island were evidence of its growing electoral appeal.
"Our task now is to translate this potential into political strength in Leinster House. Success in this will promote the Sinn Fein peace strategy and through it the peace process, which republicans helped to create and which we are determined to advance."
He said Sinn Fein would challenge the culture of tax evasion and avoidance that fed not just the mindset of the Ansbacher account-holders, but also those involved in the slush funds and corruption one heard about every day in the Flood and DIRT tribunals.
The Sinn Fein candidate, Mr Aengus O Snodaigh (35), said Dublin South Central was a constituency of marked differences and marked inequalities ranging from Fatima Mansions to Crumlin to Terenure.
"It is an area which is affected by many of the same difficulties as other growing areas in the country, a shortage of housing, traffic chaos, growing waiting lists in the health service and drug abuse. It is an area where the failures of successive governments are all too obvious to see."
Mr O Snodaigh works for Bord na Gaeilge and is a SIPTU trade union shop steward. Married with two young sons, he is a graduate in history and geography from University College Dublin. He has been a party member of Sinn Fein and community activist since his student days.
O Snodaigh He is a former chairman of Dublin Sinn Fein and was a member of the Dublin officer boards from 1984 to 1996. He is the author of the party's policy document on the drugs epidemic, Empowering Communities.