Seamus Mallon is reporting for duty early this morning. Before starting work he plans to have a cup of coffee with David Trimble. He intends that this be a daily procedure.
Sitting puffing his pipe behind his large desk at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, yesterday he told The Irish Times that while his relationship with David Trimble "always will be uneasy" they were both going to ensure they acted together in a professional, businesslike manner.
Hence the scheduled 15-minute chat over coffee to plan the day ahead, to agree on a common approach to issues, and to ensure that any "niggles" could be resolved before they erupt into a blazing row in the full glare of the media.
Mr Mallon didn't comment directly on Mr Trimble's egregious remark about house-training Sinn Feiners, but he believed similar pitfalls could be avoided by these early-morning conferences.
Incidentally, Mr Trimble genuinely appeared not to appreciate the offence he caused to Sinn Fein and also to some in the broader nationalist community by his remarks. It was "the stuff of politics", he said yesterday.
Mr Mallon said: "I want to create a situation where if there is something about me that is bugging him he can tell me, or if he is bugging me I can, and will, tell him. That way we can avoid problems before they build up."
Rather than beefing up the economy or bailing out farmers, one of the first issues to be discussed at the first Executive meeting on Thursday is likely to be flags.
This would not be easily solved, said Mr Mallon. He understood from official advice that in the absence of a directive from the Northern Secretary Peter Mandelson it was a matter for each individual minister to decide whether the Union flag should fly over his or her department on designated days.
Ultimately, Mr Mandelson can adjudicate on flags after consultation with the Assembly. As the Assembly is not meeting until Monday, the Union flag will be absent from the health and education departments of Bairbre de Brun and Martin McGuinness at least this Friday, the next designated day for hoisting the flag.
Mr McGuinness said yesterday that while republicans had to be conscious of unionist concerns, unionists should also be conscious of republican sensitivities. The Union flag over his department could not be worn by republicans, he indicated.
Mr Mallon hoped unionists and republicans in the difficult days ahead would try to be attentive as far as reasonably possible to each other's constituencies. He, and his three SDLP ministerial colleagues, however, were sanguine about flags.
If on the 20 designated days a year the flag is to be hoisted over the SDLP departments then so be it. "I have never used flags, and I will never use them, as part of the political paraphernalia," said Mr Mallon. It was a variation of the phrase regularly used by John Hume, "You can't eat a flag."
Mr Mallon expressed an expectation that some IRA arms dumps would be inspected by the end of June. He hoped GenJohn de Chastelain's decommissioning body would be able to produce a report on arms before the end of June.
"We know what was stated in the IRA statement, we know the wording of it and we await the action that will be taken in relation to the crucially important confidence-building element in terms of that statement.
"I trust it will be done soon, I hope it will be done soon and I hope that Gen de Chastelain's report will confirm that it has been done soon."
Mr Mallon said he understood the general community was still apprehensive about whether this new political project would succeed. The task of the Assembly and the Executive was to work well together to allow the public "dare hope again".
"If we do that there will be a remarkable response from people in Northern Ireland to the positive elements, the creative elements, the imaginative elements rather than letting themselves have this millstone of niggling factors, divisive factors, points of controversy hanging around our shoulders day in day out, year in and year out. It is time to shed them now and raise our eyes into the future."