The suspension of the Northern Ireland Executive was "a terrible mistake, a blunder by the British government", Mr Martin McGuinness said yesterday.
Speaking at the INTO congress in Waterford city, the former minister of education in Northern Ireland said it represented a serious setback to "those of us who were determined to demonstrate that politics work. It was a devastating blow to the peace process and an encouragement to rejectionists on all sides who wish us to remain forever locked in a past of division and conflict."
The suspension of the Executive had brought about the collapse of the All Ireland Ministerial Council. The correct thing for the British government to do was to immediately set about restoring the primacy of the Belfast Agreement by immediately re-establishing the institutions the people of Ireland had voted for, Mr McGuinness said. "Never again should a British minister - whom not one person in Ireland voted for - take it upon him or herself to overturn the democratically expressed wishes of the people of Ireland.
"Tony Blair had previously shown himself to be an imaginative and positive British Prime Minister in his dealings with Ireland. He must therefore recognise that the fallout from the suspension of the institutions is in danger of overshadowing his significant contribution to the Irish peace process."
Mr McGuinness said Mr Blair had remarked at Dublin Castle in 1998 that he felt "the hand of history on his shoulder. Well, he now holds the key to a bright new future for Ireland and its people in his hand."
The agreement could still be saved, he said. "If the decline of the agreement is to be reversed Mr Blair must steer his government and the process out of the current impasse. He must act now to save the peace process."