Peter Hain has vowed that the government will not budge from the November 24 deadline for a power-sharing administration to be set up in Northern Ireland.

In an interview for GMTV's Sunday Programme, the Northern Ireland secretary insisted that prime minister Tony Blair and Irish taoiseach Bertie Ahern would stick to the deadline they had set for political progress at Stormont.

He stressed that the government could not sustain a situation where the Northern Ireland assembly had cost taxpayers £90m without MLAs actually governing the province.

"We can't continue as we are and we won't," said Hain.

"And the deadline on November 24, which will be in the new emergency bill I'll introduce on Wednesday, will make it clear that there's no one last chance. That is it."

Devolution has been suspended in Northern Ireland since October 2002, since when Northern Ireland has been ruled British government ministers.

All 108 members of the Northern Ireland assembly will be summoned on May 15 for the first of two bids to form an executive.

MLAs will have six weeks to form a multi-party government at Stormont.

If, as is widely expected, this does not happen, the assembly will return in September and be given until November to form an executive.