Once upon a time on a visit to Washington I was looking for a reception laid on for David Trimble. The hotel commissionaire told me the "Irish party" was in Room 305. He paused and asked: "Is that for your Prime Minister, Mr Adams? I saw him today on TV."

As we all know, Gerry Adams is the leader of a party that has minority support in the North and even less backing south of the Border. But the hotel worker's comment shows the standing he enjoys because of his high-media profile.

In west Belfast he had a high profile even before TV censorship was removed. This can pose a problem when you are meeting him for an interview, with endless goodnatured interventions from members of the public.

We met in a coffee shop attached to a local supermarket. I was early, which gave me time to plan. I considered seating him at the table farthest from the entrance but this was beside a children's play area. The prospect of talking about decommissioning while Adams bounced a kiddie on his knee was too much. In the end I opted for a corner table where only a few people would see him.

There were serious issues to discuss. That afternoon the House of Commons was to debate a motion on the so-called punishment beatings, an issue beginning to assume the importance of the dreadful "necklacings" in the South African peace process.

It is not Gerry Adams's favourite subject. He clearly resents what he sees as a "well-orchestrated" campaign to promote the issue, not motivated by concern for the victims but as a means of "wrecking and destabilising" the Belfast Agreement. His view is that problems of anti-social behaviour and the lack of a proper policing service need to be addressed constructively.

Sinn Fein was against "these beatings". He had been at meetings in poor working-class areas of Belfast and he had seen no other politician there. Sinn Fein had had to restrain people whose friends or relatives were killed by drivers of stolen cars. "Walk round this store now," he says. "Do a vox pop. You'll find the Sinn Fein influence is a moderating and moderate influence."

He adds: "To my certain knowledge, these incidents which pass as punishment beatings, while there may be republican involvement in some of them, there quite clearly is not an IRA involvement and most of them are to do with local people defending themselves or local people, if you like, taking the law into their own hands. I know of a number of incidents which were presented as punishment beatings which were local young people after a few jars being involved in brawls."

North Belfast man Andrew Kearney died in a "punishment" attack. Asked if the IRA was involved, Adams replies: "The man should not have been shot, never mind shot to death." The dead man's mother, Mrs Maureen Kearney, has given media interviews but Adams is reluctant to comment and says he does not want to argue the case in public with her.

Last August, he condemned the Omagh bomb. Should he not also condemn the beatings? "Well, I'm against the punishment beatings." Sinn Fein was working hard, arguing for task forces and other measures. The party had drawn up detailed papers and he had personally hosted meetings with groups of alienated young people. At the end of the interview he says he is on his way to a social occasion where constituents will remonstrate with him about the need for "punishment" beatings. "You see," he

??????????ein leader says, "this is not an issue in west Belfast."

The beatings issue unresolved, we turn to another great conundrum, decommissioning. As far as Adams is concerned, this was dealt with on Good Friday. "If Mr Trimble has some other way and wants to put in place some other mechanism which is new and different from the Good Friday Agreement then the very least he should do is come across constructively and positively and consult with all the other parties, as opposed to this nonsense of seizing on the issue."

He rejects the conventional wisdom that without decommissioning, Trimble's leadership is doomed. "Does anybody think there's any logic in anyone going to the IRA and saying, would you decommission to save David Trimble? The whole thing is just totally irrational and illogical, and I'm part of the tragedy of it, maybe."

He warns: "David Trimble is going to lead everybody to the edge of the cliff." People told him it was about Trimble managing the party but it was really more a case of the party managing Trimble.

He shows no interest in the notion of an "indicative calendar" canvassed by loyalist leader Billy Hutchinson, whereby Sinn Fein would get its ministries while the IRA announced a timetable for future decommissioning. "The decommissioning issue has dogged the process since it was conceived: I have no doubt it is going to dog the process forever."

With considerable confidence, Adams said recently that if a cabinet were set up, Sinn Fein would be on it. But how could he be so sure? "I just refuse to believe - and I could be naive in this - that the governments will let this agreement go."

He sees two possible scenarios: "One of them is about the governments acquiescing to the Unionist game plan and the other is, as we have managed to do so far, people in some way sticking with the search for a peace settlement and, in spite of all the frustrations, advancing the implementation of the agreement."

He cannot visualise a return to the "bad old days" of excluding Sinn Fein. "That would be a total and absolute disaster to all of us who have been trying to build this peace process." Looking south of the Border, he pays a tortuous compliment to the embattled Bertie Ahern as "the best of them in terms of the people who could, or perhaps would, be responsible for the peace process if he was not in that position".

But Sinn Fein would still be challenging Fianna Fail and the other parties in the local and European elections this year. "We are the only party which is organised nationally and has the proper handle on the republican labour dimension."

Adams has ambitious plans for Sinn Fein in the South and chides me for an excessive emphasis on Northern issues in the interview. "Sinn Fein still retains idealism and has the capacity to tap into a vision for the future. For what it is worth, all our representatives draw roughly less than half their salaries." There was a "stench of corruption" from the various tribunals and, "certainly in the past the main parties had a `brown envelope' ethos".

Adams featured several times in a recent TV documentary on David Trimble but every time the Sinn Fein leader appeared, they played the music from Jaws. Adams laughs but, given that he is reviled in sections of the media and in view of all the pressures and demands on him, I put the question: "Is it any fun being Gerry Adams any more?"

He laughs. Are you enjoying what you're doing at the moment, I ask. "No, it's very, very hard work." It was "hugely draining" on a personal level: he went down with flu on Christmas Day and was confined to bed for three weeks. This phase of what he calls "the struggle" did not provide the same "adrenalin drive" that there was in the past. "It is both a grind and it is tedious but the prize is a democratic peace settlement so we just have to bend our will to it and get on with it."