Blair, Ahern set November deadline to restore N. Ireland gov't

ARMAGH, Northern Ireland (AFP) — The British and Irish prime ministers set Northern Ireland's bickering Protestant and Catholic factions a November deadline to restore power-sharing or have it taken away from them.

"The moment comes, as we always knew it would, for the ultimate decision," Britain's Tony Blair told a press conference with his Irish counterpart Bertie Ahern.

Bidding to reinstate multi-party institutions frozen nearly four years ago, they said 108 lawmakers elected under a 1998 peace deal would reconvene on May 15.

That assembly, which enjoys powers devolved from the government in London, would have six weeks to form an executive, and if that fails, it would have a further 12 weeks after the summer political recess.

If by November 24 the assembly had still failed to achieve this, Blair and Ahern threatened to scrap further elections to the province's parliament, stop paying lawmakers and ...