Although it was Seamus Mallon who used it first in public, Mark Durkan coined the often-cited dictum that the Belfast Agreement was "Sunningdale for slow-learners". As Northern Ireland's Minister for Finance and Personnel, Mr Durkan has not lost his way with words. "Farmers know that you can't get milk out of a bull - you can't do that, so we have to deal with what we have," he said at a briefing on Wednesday when asked about demands by farmers in the North for more funding.

"We are dealing with a totally fixed budget and we're going to have to live within that," he said, referring to the North's bloc budget from the British Treasury. This will be worth £8.9 billion sterling in 2000-2001.

"You can't get more from one budget line without taking at least some from at least one other. Any slack that is to come can only come from tightly managing all our programmes."

Barely half a month in the job, Mr Durkan presented his first budget to the new Assembly at Stormont on Wednesday.

Many may have doubted that the parties to the Agreement would sit together around a Cabinet table, but the Finance Minister stressed that the spending proposals had been agreed by all the members of the Executive.

The share of the budget controlled by Mr Durkan, which excluded provisions for security, was worth some £5 billion sterling (€8 million). But it was effectively a civil service plan, based along the lines of spending agreed under a comprehensive spending review (CSR) initiated after the Labour government in Britain took power.

"The Executive Committee decided that the best way was to move forward with the plan we inherited on devolution. We don't have an available turning circle on which we can do much different," said Mr Durkan.

The Executive and politicians in general have been preoccupied with the establishment of the new administration and policy matters such as a programme for government remain to be negotiated. Mr Durkan acknowledged that hard choices lie ahead, but expects to see a programme in place by the summer.

"The programme for government is going to be for the Executive Committee as a whole. We're not in a situation where the Department of Finance and Personnel can lay down spending and everybody else follows.

"There has to be a reality check with everybody [in the other government departments]."

Results will be the key factor. "That will be the test. People want to see a `devolution difference'.

"People are going to want to see an improvement and that improvement is going to have to be something that is visible to people in terms of outcomes and not just in terms of budget lines.

"We want to be effective in terms of our programme. Remember, the whole concept of being radical isn't just in terms of the policy you pick.

"Radicalism also involves how you implement it and how you actually pursue achievement of the outcome.

"What we really need to concentrate on in the coming months is to develop and agree a programme for government. This will provide the basis and the principles through which the budget is formulated and through which the budget [next year] is produced."

Mr Durkan was broadly positive about the prospects for the North's economy.

"We're in a situation, where - contrary to a lot of the focus today about the costs of the new departments - the new departments can focus much better on a whole variety of activities. It will allow us to do more in certain sectors.""

The North-South bodies offer good opportunities to foster growth, he said, agreeing also that there were further opportunities in Britain to be exploited.

"In terms of cross-border trade, there is huge room to grow there, therefore we should be identifying that as a real opportunity. "After all, if we're talking about making ourselves ever more competitive, then clearly we shouldn't baulk at the prospect of a single-island economy, increasingly in different sectors. In something like the energy sector, we'd probably be best to move in that direction earlier rather than later."

On the heavy level of state employment in the North, which runs at 30 per cent of the workforce, Mr Durkan said: "We need to be very careful about saying anything that caricatures the public sector or the public sector's contribution to this community and its economy.

"But the reality is, the public sector and public expenditure does represent an undue proportion of our social and economic activity as compared with other economies. Now that's a balance that we are going to have to improve. It's a matter of saying that we can get more out of and do more with that public spending."

Mr Durkan suggested that there were opportunities for growth in the small and medium-sized, indigenous sector, tourism, and in "creative", or cultural, industries.

He agreed with a suggestion that the economy can grow by attracting inward investment from high-tech firms, a key strategy in the success of the Republic's economy. "It's an area where the North has already been scoring and has attracted some significant high-tech investment."

Asked about the role of education in this, he said the focus will be on "getting more" from the systems which are already in place.

"Developing our human resources, continuing to invest in human capital is obviously very, very important. But it's not the only thing that's involved in economic development. So too is developing the infrastructure and it's no accident that we designed a department that very much intends to deal with infrastructure in the economy."

On the possibility of lowering corporate tax to help Northern agencies and firms compete for foreign investment with companies in the Republic, where there is a low corporation tax regime, Mr Durkan acknowledged that this is "an issue".

However, he added: "When people are taking a decision on locating an investment, the question of corporation tax isn't the only consideration. "Depending on the nature of the company's operation and depending on the balance of the [capital] costs of that operation and elements of the tax regime, at times they can get as favourable a tax outcome coming north as going south."

Mr Durkan appeared unconvinced by an argument that the new structure in the North will be held back by the fact that it is not a tax-raising system.

"Had we opted for tax-raising powers on the Scottish model, would it really have given us much more latitude than we have now? The fact that we had tax-raising powers would be taken into account by the Treasury and we would be allocated funds accordingly."

Asked whether he would attempt to claw back funds previously spent by British governments on security as the threat from paramilitaries diminishes in the future, Mr Durkan said: "We need to be realistic about prospects and we also need to be realistic about other pressures. There's been a big extra spend on Northern Ireland per capita, not just because of the security situation."

For now, the most important matter on the economic agenda is the development of a programme for government.

"We have to move from championing a few issues, to deciding priorities among all the issues," he said in his statement to the Assembly on Wednesday morning. We must graduate from making demands to making decisions - from making demands against each other, to making decisions with each other and for each other."

Citing the necessity to agree everything with his Executive colleagues beforehand, Mr Durkan was reluctant to be drawn on what next year's budget might contain.

"Hopefully it can be presented a bit earlier than coming into the mouth of Christmas."