The President, Mrs McAleese, speaking during her visit to the United States, has expressed confidence that the results in the election for the Northern Ireland Assembly will show strong support for the peace process. She dismissed the likelihood of a result which could "paralyse" the working of the Assembly.
"The day of the dinosaurs is over. The future belongs to the bridge-builders, not to the wreckers", she told a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington .
She said she believed that the momentum for peace was now unstoppable. "There now exists a unique constellation of forces which is capable of guiding this enterprise to its ultimate success."
These forces comprised "the unyielding demand for peace from the people themselves, the unprecedented degree of co-operation between the Irish and British governments in driving the process forward, the courage and vision shown by the pro-agreement parties in Northern Ireland, and the crucial help and encouragement provided by influential cheerleaders on this side of the Atlantic".
She knew the people of Northern Ireland, as she was one of them, and they were a faithful people. She believed that they would follow through on the commitment given when they voted Yes in the referendum.
"I fervently hope that the Assembly elections will see a similarly high turnout as the recent referendum and that the people of Northern Ireland will display that same degree of political maturity as they did on May 22nd, following through their determined endorsement of peace through partnership by ensuring those entrusted with our common future are people worthy of that most sacred trust."
Asked later on a phone-in radio programme what she thought of the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, who had said he would have voted for her in the presidential election, Mrs McAleese said that he did not have a vote. She praised the courage shown by Mr Adams and other political leaders such as Mr John Hume, Mr David Trimble, Mr Gary McMichael and Mr David Ervine.
"The cohort of leaders on whom we have been relying have been tried and tested in the most extraordinary furnace of Northern Ireland politics. All of them have shown enormous qualities of leadership. Each has shown a capacity to change, which has been crucial.
"So he, Adams, along with all the other political leaders, are entitled to our gratitude for the way they have shown the kind of visionary leadership which was important."
Asked how concerned she was about those who were opposing the peace agreement, Mrs McAleese said: "They got their answer in the overwhelming voice of the Irish people, North and South."
That "resounding voice" had said to those who still had violence lurking in their hearts: "We don't want you. You are the past, you are not the future. We disown you. We want no part of you."
She said she wanted to show that she was not just a President for those who were nationalist and those who were Catholic, that she was not clientelist in that way, that she had a "deep love and deep affection and a very wide embrace for all the people who come under the aegis of the President of Ireland, for all those who live in Northern Ireland, whose friendship I want to cultivate, not with any hidden agenda, but simply because I think we work better when we are friends and not in conflict".
Mrs McAleese also addressed a lunch hosted by the International Relations Committee on Capitol Hill. Later she flew to New York, where she paid a courtesy call on the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan. She also attended a reception by the Irish Business Organisation and a ceremony honouring winners of the Dreamer of Dreams awards presented by the Irish Voice newspaper.