The North's politicians urgently need to prepare themselves for the business of "real politics", a report by Democratic Dialogue, a Northern think-tank, has concluded.
The report, "Hard Choices", was co-authored by the Northern Ireland Economic Council and the Eastern Health and Social Services Board. It warns that public representatives will have to leave behind "the culture of protest and demand" and start dealing seriously and constructively with issues such as public expenditure.
Sir George Quigley, the chairman of Ulster Bank and former head of the Economic Council, said hard choices lay ahead for local politicians who so far had performed the role of "backbench MPs". "It is one thing to urge the British government to increase or decrease spending on one thing or another and to leave it deal with the consequences for the budget overall. It is quite another matter to have to fit all the pieces of the jigsaw together for oneself," he said at the report's launch yesterday.
The fact that the four parties who would be in government in the North were "not natural bedfellows" posed the danger of producing a "fragmented and ill-co-ordinated administration", Sir George said.