Bungalows and donations loom large

By Mark Devenport BBC Northern Ireland political editor

Our future ministers are now reading themselves into the portfolios they are due to assume when the new Stormont executive goes live on 8 May.

Once Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern and the attendant international media corps have come and gone it will be down to the local parties to take on the nitty gritty of housing and health, education and the environment.

Aware that any premature policy announcements could leave them open to challenge, the politicians are generally avoiding saying anything contentious.

Brian Wilson is worried about bungalow blight

That doesn't stop others predicting what the devolved ministers might do.

Appearing on Inside Politics, Stormont's first Green assembly member Brian Wilson expressed his concern that the DUP might blow cold on the need for a new independent environmental protection agency.

An outside review team is certain to recommend such an agency, but it will be up to the incoming DUP environment minister, Arlene Foster, and her colleagues on the executive to decide whether to act on this recommendation.

Mr Wilson's other concern is that all the main parties are lining up to overturn PPS 14, the controversial ban on new housing development in rural areas.

Farmers and property developers want the ban, pushed through by the direct rule minister Lord Rooker, to be dropped.

Whether the measure is reversed or amended, say, to allow building by farming families, will be the responsibility in the first instance of the Sinn Fein regional development minister, Conor Murphy.

However, under the new rules ensuring collective action by ministers, the entire executive will have the final say with ministers like Michelle Gildernew at agriculture, Margaret Ritchie at social development and Arlene Foster at environment no doubt taking a close interest in the proceedings.

Stormont minsters are going to be making the decisions

Brian Wilson worries that he cuts a lonely figure at Stormont in his support for the rural housing ban and that the new executive could approve the kind of "bungalow blitz" which he believes has blighted County Donegal.

No doubt those ministers considering the future of PPS 14 will do so with the wider interests of the community in mind.

But now they have the power to make such decisions, the question of who lobbies and who funds our local parties will be brought into sharper focus.

When Margaret Ritchie appeared recently on the Nolan Show on Radio Ulster she was cross-examined on the matter by one caller and reiterated that she would act with strict propriety at all times in making decisions on social development.

Currently the local parties don't have to report who gives them money, but the regulatory framework for donations is due to be brought into line with the rest of the UK.

From November they will have to make regular reports to the government appointed watchdog, the Electoral Commission.

However, unlike other parties elsewhere in the UK, those reports will be kept secret.

If a member of the Electoral Commission staff tells a journalist who has been funding a local party, they could face a jail sentence.

The commission has made no secret of the fact that it is uneasy with this role, which will see it trying to police donations without any public transparency.

That's due to remain the case until November 2010.

Given the backdrop of the Troubles, local politicians make the case that exposing their donors to public scrutiny could compromise their personal security and deter potential gifts.

But with 8 May holding out the prospect of greater stability and placing the local parties in charge of decisions with real financial implications, some may ask whether three years is too long a period for party funding to remain behind a veil of secrecy.