The new NI Finance Minister, Dr Sean Farren, tells MonikaUnsworth he needs £4 billion to bring services up to scratch
Dr Sean Farren took time off this week from his challenging Finance portfolio to call on loyalist paramilitaries to follow the IRA's example and start decommissioning their weapons. While he believed in the future of the devolved institutions it was time for all sides to meet their obligations, he added.
"The IRA's move on decommissioning is to be welcomed. It provides a further basis for the stability of the institutions which offer such hope for our future. There can, however, be no justification whatsoever for the lack of movement by loyalists
"Those of us in the pro-agreement camp will do all we can to listen to their concerns, but it is time that loyalism stood up on its own two feet, took a long hard look at itself and decided what it can contribute to the future of the North."
As transformations go few have been as dramatic as that of the quietly spoken Dublin-born doctor of philosophy who until four months ago was the minister for further and higher education, a portfolio not only suited to his academic background but also to his looks of a slightly dishevelled professor.
Then he was called upon to take over the finance portfolio from Mr Mark Durkan, the SDLP's new leader and Deputy First Minister. Since then Dr Farren has become the man in sharp suits who holds the North's purse-strings, obliging his ministerial colleagues to make their departments' case to him before handing out any funds.
"I certainly enjoyed my old job due to my own background and the fact that I was familiar with all the key players," he says. "So the move to finance - an area I did not have any direct experience of - made me a bit apprehensive, especially after having seen Mark's responsibilities from the other side of the table while negotiating with him on behalf of my Department.
" I was in awe of his capacity to address the issues and felt the example he set would be very difficult for someone coming in to live up to. But after four months I am certainly much more at ease now and am beginning to enjoy the portfolio as far as you can enjoy it."
His advisers say they have not seen their boss cross about anything yet. "We have started to wonder what it would take to get him angry," one jokes.
A suggestion that he gives his ministerial colleagues an easy ride when they come to ask for money is, however, rebutted by Dr Farren, albeit with a wry smile.
"I had the Health Minister [Sinn Féin's Ms Bairbre de Brún] in here this morning, and in the afternoon it's Martin McGuinness [the Education Minister]. So you are just the meat in the sandwich."
The Finance Minister says it will take at least an additional £4 billion to his current £6 billion budget over the next five to 10 years to address the backlog in investment in the North's main services such as health, education and transport.
It is, however, not just a question of securing the funds, he adds. "It will involve a whole learning exercise, not just by the politicians but also by the public, who will have to learn that there is no instant gratification available on all of the issues of concern."
Some of his Assembly colleagues' "populist approach" to issues has not been helpful. "While the committees always deal very responsibly with the details of any given proposals in the plenary sessions, that sense of realism is often abandoned, and people play to the gallery. After 30 years of direct rule we still have to learn to move from demand politics to responsible politics."
One way of raising extra income would be to bestow tax-raising powers to the Assembly similar to those exercised by the Scottish Parliament.
Apart from requiring a renegotiation of the Belfast Agreement, which makes no provision for such powers, Dr Farren says he would be cautious about advocating their use.
"It could well be a double-edged sword because obviously the British Treasury could say: 'The more you raise yourselves the less you need from us.' The way the revenue system operates in the UK it would be quite unlikely that even if we had the power it would actually be used to any considerable extent.
"Having said that, it would add to our authority to have it at least as a potential form of additional revenue should we need it."
Dr Farren would like to see a review of the Barnett Formula, which is used to allocate funds to the regions on a per-capita basis, but realises that there is little desire in Scotland and Wales for such a change.
"In a socially deprived region like Northern Ireland we would like to see the formula needs-based rather than capita-based. If a strong, concerted effort was made across the three devolved administrations it would be a much more powerful case but this is not happening at the moment."
While "not as such pessimistic" about the outcome of the Treasury's spending review, which is due to be completed in July and will determine the budget allocations to the regions for the next three years, Dr Farren knows he is not in the easiest position to make a strong case for Northern Ireland.
According to a recent estimate his Department is losing around £300 million a year by maintaining domestic rates, which are lower than England's council tax, and not yet having introduced public utility charges for water and sewerage.
The Finance Department is currently undertaking a review of the rating system which, based on the rental rather than capital value of properties, is "iniquitous and unfair" towards low-income households, the Minister insists.
He rejects criticism that there have been "political delays" in holding the review which, if it suggests higher rates and the introduction of public utility charges, would inevitably prove unpopular if brought in before next May's Assembly elections.
Dr Farren says he has been impressed with the way Ministers from all parties have risen above their party-political backgrounds to work for the good of their departments.
"If you were the proverbial man from Mars just sitting in at an Executive meeting you would often be hard-put to say so-and-so is from the same party as whoever is sitting beside him or her on certain issues, and that is the way it should be.
"My big regret is that our DUP colleagues [who do not participate in Executive meetings due to the presence of the two Sinn Féin ministers] don't come in to experience that first-hand because I would be the first to acknowledge their ability."
A Border poll, as recently suggested by David Trimble, would, however, be inappropriate at this stage, he feels.
"It is such a constitutionally important issue that there would be no point in holding one without having thoroughly debated its implications first. To hold it on the same day as an Assembly election makes no sense at all.
"You are asking people to elect MLAs to form a government for Northern Ireland while at the same time asking them whether they want Northern Ireland to continue existing. It's nonsense," he says.
Having arrived from Dublin to teach at the University of Ulster in Coleraine 32 years ago, Dr Farren says he has no regrets about having become an adopted son of the North.
"In fact, I feel I sometimes have to temper some of the attitudes that my more nationalist friends might have when they point to the South as the greatest place on Earth.
"What I can see through my children is how young people from all sides of the community move easily North and South, and I think the Belfast Agreement for the first time recognises these realities politically."