LONDON (AFP) -- British and Irish prime ministers Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern were standing by the aim of reaching accord to restore power-sharing government in Northern Ireland by a November deadline.

Blair, speaking Friday after meeting Ahern at his Chequers rural retreat north of London, warned it would be "difficult" to strike a deal if the November 24 deadline is missed.

"We believe they do need to decide before the deadline of November 24," said Blair's official spokesman, referring to parties which are expected to try to hammer out a compromise at talks in St. Andrews, Scotland, next month. Blair, who is set to stand down as British premier next year, has said that the current talks are "the last chance for this generation to make the process work."

Ahern underlined that there had already been a lot of "substantive progress" in talks so far.

"We would like to see more. We would like to see direct engagement. A lot of the barriers, a lot of the issues, that divided us even in 2004 have been removed," he said.

"The issue really is this. Do the parties in Northern Ireland want to forgo this opportunity? Do they want to get the power-sharing executive working?"

The multi-party institutions resulting from the 1998 Good Friday Agreement involve 108 lawmakers in an assembly which has powers devolved from the government in London.

The assembly was suspended in 2002 following allegations of a Irish Republican Army spy ring operating at the Stormont parliamentary buildings in Belfast.

Efforts have been accelerated this year in a bid to restore government in Belfast.

Ahead of Friday's talks the Irish government said the discussions were aimed at giving "renewed focus and energy" to efforts to fully implement the Good Friday accord, which aimed to finally end Northern Ireland's long Troubles.

They focused "on the preparation for the process of engagement in the run-up to the deadline of 24 November," Dublin said.

Blair's spokesman noted afterwards that Northern Ireland, which was for decades wracked by inter-community violence, had this year enjoyed "what was the calmest summer since before 1970".

But London and Dublin have warned bickering Protestant and Catholic factions that if a deal to reconvene a joint regional executive did not emerge, they faced suspension and loss of their salaries.

Northern Ireland's main Protestant party, the Democratic Unionists (DUP), led by hardline cleric Ian Paisley, has rejected the November deadline for forming a power-sharing government with the nationalist Catholic Sinn Fein.

"We don't hang ourselves on this arbitrary deadline," DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson said in July.

If the November deadline is missed, the Northern Ireland assembly and other bodies will be dissolved, and the province will remain under direct rule from London, with Dublin having a say in its running.

The Irish premier said he did not believe that was what most politicians in Northern Ireland wanted.

"There is not too many places in the world that I have ever heard about and read about in any time in history that people elected with the mandate and responsibility to govern would walk away from that," he said.

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern reiterated Thursday that Dublin is committed to meeting the November deadline. "The deadline is real. There will be no deviation or delay," he said.

And he warned: "Failure to make political agreement on restoration will have stark implications. It will confine the parties to the margins of policy-making... to a kind of virtual politics."