Peter Robinson has surprised observers of the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) stance on negotiations leading to the Northern Ireland Assembly, as well as officials in his new department, with the alacrity with which he has set about his new role.
After almost two years of implacable opposition to the Belfast Agreement, under which the Assembly was set up, Mr Robinson sees no contradiction in taking up a ministry in that Assembly.
"When Enoch Powell and others were arguing for total integration, I was still arguing for devolution. I have always believed that it was right that Northern Ireland should have its own assembly or parliament," he said.
Officials say they responded to his ability to put the political to one side, and to get on with the practical, day-to-day work that needs to be done. Words being used around Clarence Court to describe him now include open, frank, intelligent and courteous.
He said the decision to take a ministry was a difficult one for the party. But while it might have been easier to remain "against everything", it "doesn't develop your own personality much, I have to say, nor indeed does it enable you to better the lot of people you represent.
"We had to take a decision: do we face up to reality that this is the situation, whether it is what we wanted it to be, or do we just continue to oppose and keep our virtue in the matter?"
Regional Development offers the scope for making change rather than "managing a budget which is almost predetermined, whether it is wages for teachers or nurses".
"In all the conversations that I had with civil servants and others, they were regarding the three big departments as being Economic Development or the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment, Finance and Personnel and Regional Development, and I think they had decided very early on between the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP that I was not to get Finance and Personnel. If it had been there I would have taken it."
He adds that since then Mark Durkan has said that Finance and Personnel would not have been his first choice. "Then why take it? The answer is that they did not want Peter Robinson to get it."
He says the First Minister, Mr David Trimble, is now coming to realise the difficulty inherent in the Assembly procedures. The First Minister, he points out, cannot sack his ministers. He can ask the Assembly, "by its convoluted voting system", to remove them, but their parties can appoint replacements. "David Trimble doesn't have the control over ministers that other democracies have. He is already beginning to find that out." He predicts major difficulties when Mr Durkan's budget faces amendments in January. "Ministers voting against budget proposals is inconceivable in any other democracy. How do you ever run an assembly with the kind of voting arrangements that we have?"
He thinks the cavalcade of Mercedes bearing Irish ministers to Armagh for the first meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council was the Irish Government "shooting itself in the wheel", but it does show, he feels, that the whole structure (of the Assembly) "is designed to lead towards a political outcome of a united Ireland. The process leads in that direction".
"I have the option, as I say, of remaining a political virgin, of keeping my hands clean and saying, well, don't blame me, I opted out. Or else getting my hands dirty and throughout the whole of the process alerting other unionists of the danger they are putting the Union into, of alerting the whole unionist community to what's going on.
"I intend to make this department the best of the Northern Ireland departments. I intend to see that the people of Northern Ireland get the best possible deal from all of the areas that I cover, I want to see improvements in every one of the areas of remit that I have and I will do that with all heart, and none of that prejudices the political views that I have on the future of Northern Ireland."