A brighter future starts to emerge after 40 years of conflict

After delivering his Budget yesterday, Finance Minister Peter Robinson decided that the Alliance Party's Stephen Farry, needed the benefit of his knowledge and experience . . . and condescension.

Farry, a North Down Assembly member, had attempted to rain on Robinson's big day by complaining that the Finance Minister's £10 billion (€13.4 billion) Budget for next year did nothing for a "shared future" for Northern Ireland.

"I should give something of a lesson about the role of Opposition," said Robinson.

One didn't oppose just for the hell of it. That was bad politics.

His wife, MLA Iris Robinson, sitting beside him, voiced her approval, taunting that Alliance was such an Opposition that it could meet in a telephone box.

Nobody rains on the Robinsons' parade, especially when, as Peter Robinson said, for the first time in almost 40 years a locally-elected Finance Minister was delivering a budget in a "stable political environment".

There were rows aplenty in the lead-up to yesterday's finalised Budget, as you would expect in a Northern Executive comprising DUP, Sinn Féin, Ulster Unionist and SDLP Ministers.

But when Mr Robinson rose to speak in the chamber of Parliament Buildings yesterday morning all that was sorted.

He found more money for health, housing, roads, victims and the arts, and said a freeze on rates and the postponement of water charges would save each householder £1,000, on average, over the next three years.

That was a major achievement and one that should not be derided, considering where Northern Ireland had come from, was Robinson's view, which explained why he turned on Farry.

"Though it is only eight months since power returned to Stormont, I believe that today's announcement is yet another sign that devolution is working," he added.

Which was a reasonable assessment, particularly considering that Robinson balanced his optimism with the acknowledgement that the North was hugely overdependent on the public sector.

He hoped that a new £90 million innovation initiative, which the Irish Government is supporting to the tune of €60 million, would be a start towards shifting the balance in favour of the private sector.

"What I am putting in place are the building blocks for a new, confident Northern Ireland," Robinson said.

And without over-egging it, he made the point that yesterday was another significant day for the new powersharing dispensation, which everybody had a part to play in making work: "After decades of division and conflict, this Executive is now moving forward on an agreed basis. After 40 years of conflict we are emerging to a brighter future."