Sinn Fein has rejected calls from Tony Blair yesterday that the IRA should be disbanded immediately in order for the Good Friday Agreement to be continued.

Reaction to what Mr Blair described as his "frank view" expressed yesterday at the Belfast Harbour Commission, has been mixed. Anti-agreement and hardline unionists dismissed the speech – which warned the IRA that it could not continue "half in, half out" of the peace process – as empty rhetoric, however, the most vociferous response has not surprisingly emanated from republicans.

Party president Gerry Adams said that it was "not a time for deadlines." He said that these had not worked in the past, and there was considerable "anger" within republican circles as a result of Mr Blair's speech.

Mr Adams said: "I think the republican anger will be that the focus is on one armed group. What we need to do is understand that the removal of the political anchor of the [peace] process was a grievous mistake. The only way to make politics work… is to uphold and assert the primacy of politics."

Sinn Fein's West Tyrone MP, Pat Doherty, denied that the IRA was linked to his party, adding that Sinn Fein was "in government because of its electoral mandate". The other leaders of the main political parties were largely welcoming of Mr Blair's tough line on paramilitary violence.

SDLP leader Mark Durkan was broadly positive in his assessment of the Prime Minister's comments.

Mr Durkan said: "I have been very clear all along that the Agreement is, among other things, about a future without paramilitaries and that includes specifically a future without the IRA, just as it includes specifically a future without the UVF and the UDA."

David Ervine the leader of the PUP, a party linked to the loyalist paramilitary group the UVF, called for round-table talks by Northern Ireland's politicians so that they could take "absolute responsibility for how the future might look, including the disbandment, destruction and non-existence of paramilitary organisations".

Alliance Party leader David Ford welcomed Mr Blair's comments but cautioned that "democrats cannot be kept waiting forever for paramilitaries to abandon violence and turn to exclusively peaceful means".

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble said it was "good" that the Prime Minister had put Northern Ireland "high on his priority list".

"It is good too that there is an unambiguous finger pointing towards the IRA and the role of republicans in destabilising Unionist confidence. The crucial question is how will the Government follow through in terms of what must be done over the next few months?” he said.

There was, however, a voice of dissent within the UUP, as Ulster Unionist assembly member Billy Armstrong accused Mr Blair of trying to "hoodwink unionists into accepting his word again".

(GMcG)