FINANCE minister Simon Hamilton walked himself into a massive "to-do" list yesterday when he asked businesses face-to-face what issues were exercising them - and then promised to act on those concerns.
But he also fired a metaphorical missile at delegates when he warned them that, despite the wall-to-wall positive economic sentiment of recent months, austerity measures will "continue to be a major challenge until at least the end of this decade".
A day after he revealed his budget reallocations, in which £90 million of underspend was poured into government departments, Mr Hamilton was at east Belfast defence systems firm Thales for the first part of a 'Minister on the Move' initiative.
Run by the Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with British Airways, the series will see the minister put himself at the mercy of the business community at a series of question-and-answer sessions at different venues over the coming months.
Yesterday's event - which came within days of Thales securing a £100 million order to supply missiles to the Indonesian Ministry of Defence - saw a frank exchange of views between Mr Hamilton and guests.
The delegates, mostly senior business chiefs, were drawn from leading companies like Glen Dimplex, Denman International, Williams Industrial Services, Fujitsu, Lagan Construction, AJ Power and AES Kilroot.
Between them, they raised issues around access to finance, procurement, corporation tax and government capital works programme which the minister recorded and pledged to respond directly.
"I want to help grow the private sector, and I know there are better ways we can work together in which we can all benefit," the minister said.
During his address, Mr Hamilton warned that despite a raft of positive economic news around unemployment, car sales, business confidence, housing market movement and increased orders, there was still a long way to go.
"Yes, the recovery is under way. But it will be uneven, and for every few steps forward there will be the odd step back, and some sectors like retail still have problems," he said.
He said the biggest challenge is the continuance of austerity measures beyond the economic recovery.
"The Chancellor of the Exchequer has indicated that there will be future cuts in public spending of £25 billion, and under our Barnett measure of one-fortieth, that means something in the region of £500 million for Northern Ireland.
"That's a lot of money out of our public sector, our public spending and our economy, and we can expect these cuts until the end of this decade at least, so you can see the challenge for an economy like ours which is so dependent on the public sector.
"So really, growing the economy is a long-term thing. It won't happen overnight. And when you go through the cuts we've already faced, those we're going through at the moment and those cuts which are inevitably still to come towards 2020 and beyond, it causes us understandable concern."
Mr Hamilton said a constant mantra is for businesses to adapt to changing circumstances - and admitted there was a need for government to reform too.
"Things haven't caught fire yet, but it's going to ignite very soon, so we have to be prepared."