I do want to be in that generation of republicans that brings closure to the conflict We're up for a deal now. All I can say is that we're up for sorting it out, and it's my conviction that it will be sorted out."THE CVBorn 6 October 1948, BelfastEducation St. Mary's Christian Brothers SchoolFamily Married with one sonCareer 1964, member of Sinn Fein and Na Fianna Eireann1978, vice-president of Sinn Fein1981, member of Northern Ireland Assembly1983, president of Sinn Fein1983, MP for Belfast West1993, loses seat to SDLP1996, winner of Thorr Peace Prize1996, member, Northern Ireland Forum1997, MP for Belfast West1998, member, New Northern Ireland Assembly for Belfast WestPublications Hope and History: Making Peace in Ireland; Falls Memories: A Belfast Life; Cage Eleven: Writings from Prison. But I'm genuinely not interested in personality politics or all that goes with it."The only reason I put up with it is because I do think that I can give some service to this process, and to the broad republican cause. When the last round of negotiations failed, late last year, he said he predicted that "they're coming to get us"."They're trying to target the Sinn Fein project by targeting my credibility," he argued "If my credibility suffers then the party suffers also. For that then to be used, the way it has been used, is, I think, just symptomatic of the state of the process at this time."The process is, in the Sinn Fein president's words, in deep difficulties.

Now maybe the guy will get charged, I don't know, but at the moment he's innocent. There's no way any electronic device or any other surveillance is going to point that up, because we didn't know." Then he addressed the money-laundering issue, which has attracted much attention since police in the Republic mounted raids in Cork and elsewhere and recovered millions of pounds.Mr Adams declared: "One person, a Sinn Fein member, was arrested - just one - and then released. The allegation that he and Mr McGuinness knew about it in advance came from one person, Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach, he said; and Mr Ahern's most senior official had told Mr Adams that the only information they had came from British sources, and what was in the public arena.Mr Adams insisted: "The reason I'm so adamant about this is that we did not have prior notice. "There is a deliberate attempt, it's a project, which isn't about criminality, it's about smearing the entire Sinn Fein organisation."What of the accusations, many of them from Irish government ministers, that the IRA was responsible for the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast and is involved in money-laundering on a vast scale; that he and Mr McGuinness knew about it in advance; that they both sit on the IRA's army council?On membership of the IRA, he said: "My view is that the majority of people don't care very much about that issue." His stated belief that the IRA did not commit the bank robbery is unchanged.

"It ranges from outright opposition to concern and worry, to people who just think there's no option, the party has to deal with it."The McCartney affair is just one of Sinn Fein's problems. It has come under attack recently from many quarters and Mr Adams puts much of this down to the party's electoral success."We are trying to build Sinn Fein as a radical, progressive, agitational, campaigning alternative," he explained. It is a rule that has been lethally enforced.Yet the McCartney sisters gave the names to Mr Adams of the seven Sinn Fein men they said were in the bar. He passed these to the Northern Ireland police ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, knowing she would pass them on to the police.