The head of the Strategic Investment Board is determined to overcome political barriers to develop Northern Ireland's neglected public services, writes Una McCaffrey

If you are ever minded, for whatever reason, to annoy David Gavaghan, a simple way to do it would be to suggest erecting a Portakabin somewhere in the North, preferably to plug some public infrastructural deficit.

He will, admittedly, be much too polite and refined to get cross in any kind of public way, but you can be sure that, underneath the surface, his blood will be warming up nicely.

Portakabins and Gavaghan, chief executive of the Strategic Investment Board (Sib), based in Belfast, simply do not mix. In them, he sees a symbolic representation of what exactly is wrong with the North's hospitals, schools and other public service buildings and, by extension, the reason for its infrastructure falling behind that of other places.

Portakabins, you see, smack of short-term solutions and Gavaghan is determined that his vision should be one that lasts for years.

In charge of a £16 billion (€23.58 billion) public investment programme for the North, Gavaghan is refreshingly unphased at the power that he and any of the North's political players who might choose to oppose him have at their fingertips.

In short, he is the man who will oversee a radical upgrade programme that should lift the North's neglected public services on a par with those of the Republic and Britain.

This will all be contingent, of course, on whether he is permitted by the vagaries of Northern politics to actually do his job. Success will also be driven by his ability to bring in private finance through public/private partnerships (PPPs).

Since his appointment last year, the Assembly has fallen and direct rule has re-emerged. The UK secretary of state in charge has changed, as have a number of local MPs. He acknowledges that it might be easier to make progress if there was a degree of consistency, but is confident of getting things done, no matter what the backdrop. It is tempting to see Gavaghan's resilience as a product of his childhood in Africa, where his Indian-born, Irish passport-holding father did development work for the United Nations.

As a child he lived in Kenya, Libya and Ethiopia, presumably growing used to never relying on his surroundings for too long.

However, things changed when he was 13 and the family relocated to Wicklow, drawn there in part by the schooling options. Having attended Holy Ghost Fathers schools in Africa, Gavaghan's parents were keen on Blackrock College, and so began his Irish education.

This phase ended as the 1970s closed, with Gavaghan discussing his career options in a Trinity College guidance office. At the time, he was quite keen on customer-facing businesses, and expressed an interest in McDonald's. After completing work experience in Superquinn in Tallaght however, his opinions changed.

On the advice of his careers officer, he ended up joining Williams & Glyn's Bank, a division of Royal Bank of Scotland.

He worked there for five and a half years as an assistant to a senior manager, leaving only after discovering that he would not be made a manager until the age of 30. He was 27 at the time.

An 11-year stint with private bank Hambros followed in London, giving Gavaghan his roots in asset finance. He found a niche in property transactions using taxed-based finance and might still have been with Hambros today if it hadn't been for a takeover by Société Générale.

Along with many of his colleagues, he jumped ship in 1999, joining a specialist project finance firm. It was in this role that he came into contact with Ireland on a professional level. He worked on controversial PPPs for schools in the Republic and on student accommodation at the Magee campus in Derry.

Last year, he arranged the 100 per cent debt funding for the Moyle Interconnector.

"I knew quite a few people," he says, explaining how he was aware of the Sib job in the first place.

Having almost persuaded his partner, Helen, and five children of the merits of a move, he was offered the job just after Easter.

His kids were enrolled in Belfast schools by September and Londoner Helen is now so enamoured with Belfast that she is planning to open a restaurant there.

So all is well on the home front, but what about the workplace? How happy is Gavaghan with his endless meetings with politicians, civil servants and policemen?

"You can't change the environment unless you work with it. The crux is how we engage together to make that happen," he says with characteristic diplomacy.

The thing Sib really has going for it is that it emerged from work done during the period of devolved government.

It was born, he believes, out of frustration at the state of infrastructure and an awareness of how things were progressing in the Republic. The idea was to have a body which would identify programmes for investment and then see about funding them partially with private-sector money.

Having to work with what you get is a popular theme in the North, with Gavaghan accepting that while he would not choose to have 11 different government departments, there are political reasons for their existence.

He also realises that he needs to work with all his stakeholders if he wants to get his job done. This includes Sinn Féin, where opposition to private finance in public projects is well-voiced.

Dancing according to party lines is not in Gavaghan's make-up, however. Instead, he strips down the situation to its basics.

The North needs new infrastructure. Sib can organise the delivery of that, end of story.

Which brings us back to PPPs, hardly the most popular of government policies in any jurisdiction. Sib is aiming to fund up to one fifth of its £16 billion programme with private finance, with the bulk of the remainder to come from conventional public funding. This a radical departure, particularly because Sib is operating on a 10-year plan.

The obvious question here is how well private investors are responding to putting their money into a place where public infrastructure was historically a prime terrorist target.

"My job is to get people over here and change perceptions," says Gavaghan, pointing to a "very strong response" from both British and Irish investors.

He knows however, that a "twelfth" gone wrong or another Holy Cross school problem could upset things at any time

"At your peril do you relax," he says.

This approach involves addressing the challenges of the North head-on. Investments in schools, for example, must be made according to demographic trends rather than anything else, a factor which he says has been in "the too difficult box" until now.

The Gavaghan way around difficulties such as this is to develop a standardised plan, or a model for the various investment areas.

This will not stop the criticism of course, with a recent Westminster question asked by Ian Paisley proving the point.

Paisley asked the UK prime minister, Tony Blair, what was happening with the Stormont estate. A decision is rumoured to have been taken, he said, to "sell off that beautiful estate, which is used by all the people of Northern Ireland, whatever their religion or beliefs".

Blair was bemused, saying he would look into the details rather than "over-interpret" the apparently frantic sign language of Northern Ireland secretary of state, Peter Hain.

In reality, it seems that the most likely option for the rather dreary collection of office buildings located at the base of the Stormont estate will be leased out, refurbished and then re-occupied by the public servants, including Gavaghan, who work there now. It is not exactly a radical option, but it can nonetheless be relied upon to give rise to a difficult debate.

Gavaghan and his team have been savvy in getting as many interests on side as possible in projects which are already launched. Plans for a sports stadium on the site of the former Maze prison are progressing nicely, although he acknowledges that all of the North's major sporting bodies would need to use the facility for it to attract significant investment.

Other "strategic sites" formerly controlled by the UK Ministry of Defence include two security properties in Derry and one in Belfast's Crumlin Road.

The trick with all of this - from the water projects to the roads and property deals or the civil service shake-up - is to remain focused on the goal without getting ensnared by any of the complications that accompany public life in the North.

Gavaghan has so far managed to pass through the scene with grace, probably because he has a breadth of experience and intelligence that make him hard to criticise. He also appreciates that his task is not an easy one, but insists that it must be done if the North is to make the infrastructural progress its residents must desire. "We must not be deflected," he says firmly. It's not quite "no surrender", but the belief is just as strong.