New Northern secretary Shaun Woodward has pledged to work closely with First Minister the Rev Ian Paisley and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to ensure a full return to devolution.
New British prime minister Gordon Brown yesterday appointed Mr Woodward as the successor to Peter Hain, with his main brief to oversee the transfer from Westminster of policing and justice powers to the Northern Executive.
"My job is to ensure that we continue the work of taking local democracy back to the people of Northern Ireland and that we do the second phase of devolution, working with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister," he said yesterday evening during a series of interviews after his appointment and his first cabinet meeting.
The St Andrews Agreement sets a target date of May next year for the creation of a department of justice and justice minister in the Executive. However, the DUP has insisted that it is not locked into any such commitment and that the transfer of these powers rests solely on Sinn Féin proving it is fully signed up to the rule of law and the courts system.
DUP junior minister Ian Paisley jnr said such a transfer "could" be possible sometime after 2011, when the next Assembly is elected.
Mr Woodward should quickly settle into his new post as he has already served slightly more than a year as a junior minister to Mr Hain in the Northern Ireland Office, where one of his responsibilities was for security - which is directly linked to his current brief.
"My job now is to meet the new challenges which of course include further devolution of responsibility, chiefly policing and justice powers, and I look forward to engaging with that."
He said he was "quite surprised" to get the call from Mr Brown to join his cabinet. "It's a huge honour and privilege and it's a real thrill for me to go back to Northern Ireland where I started my ministerial career," he said.
While there was a general Northern political concern that Mr Brown had little interest in Northern Ireland, Mr Woodward insisted this was not the case.
"The prime minister has been engaged in Northern Ireland for a very, very long time and what he's offered in asking me to do this job is the responsibility of taking forward the next part of the changes, which in the case of Northern Ireland is about giving people back power, in this case criminal and justice powers, which are very, very important for the people in Northern Ireland," he added.
Sinn Féin Assembly member Mitchel McLaughlin, in an implicit reference to the devolution of justice powers, said Mr Woodward must follow through on what he said were "commitments" in the St Andrews Agreement.
"Sinn Féin will be seeking an early meeting with the new British secretary of state to discuss this and other matters including urgent progress on the delivery of a significant economic package for the new Executive," he said.
"Clearly we want to move to a position where the presence of a British secretary of state here becomes unnecessary.
"In the interim we expect the new incumbent to build upon the progress we have secured in recent months and continue to work alongside the Irish Government and all of the parties in ensuring that all outstanding matters are dealt with," Mr McLaughlin added.
