By Sean O’Driscoll

NORTHERN Ireland Secretary of State Peter Hain is to tell Irish groups in Boston and New York this week that he is giving an “absolutely last chance” for a Northern Ireland government to restart.

He also said that the proposed U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty was not relevant to the Northern Ireland question, a response to some Irish American groups who claimed that the treaty could lead to the extradition of U.S.-based Irish Republicans.

In a tough message delivered to the Irish Voice during a phone interview on Tuesday, Hain said that he will cut off all salaries and expenses to members of the suspended Northern Ireland Assembly unless they get back to work by November 24.

The Stormont parliament and government is locked in bitter disputes between its two largest parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein.

Hain said that he was tired of four years of political inertia and would set up a more permanent direct rule from London.

“This really is the last chance saloon for Northern Ireland politicians. Either they live up to their mandates and do their jobs or I’ll do it my way in cooperation with the Irish government,” he said.

Hain said that he would be asking Irish Americans in Boston and New York to help him deliver a tough message.

“In New York and Boston I’m going to be saying that the deadline is real, that the shop will shut up after November 24. If Northern Ireland politicians don’t do the deal, there’s no point coming back to me on November 25 because we’re going to be getting on with direct rule and cooperating with the south in a whole new agenda,” he said.

Hain will meet in New York with National Committee on American Foreign Policy chief Bill Flynn and others before going on to his first ever visit to Boston.

There he will meet with the leader of the Irish American Partnership, Joseph O’Leary, as well as lobbyist and former lieutenant Tom O’Neill III, a son of former House Speaker Tip O’Neill.

Hain warned that there was “absolutely no excuse” for Unionists not to go into government with Sinn Fein.

“What Unionism has to decide is whether it’s in favor of devolution or it’s not. If it’s in favor then it needs to restore (government).

“There is absolutely no reason, no excuse not to get back into government, given what Sinn Fein and the IRA have delivered over the last year.”

Hain said that the British government was not planning to extradite any Irish Republicans from the U.S. and that the new extradition treaty being debated in Congress was simply not relevant.

“All we’re looking for is reciprocity in the extradition proceedings,” he said.

He said the economic cost of division in Northern Ireland was immense and an economy which sustained those differences would not be sustainable in the long term.

“The costs of division in Northern Ireland are staggering in almost every sector. In education, for example, there are now 50,000 empty school places in Northern Ireland (rising to 80,000 by 2015) -– out of a school population of 333,000.”

He said this was a “monumental waste of resources” — teachers in the wrong places, empty class rooms, scores of small schools which are not viable.

“Two segregated primary schools in a village and doomed to closure where a merger might be viable and produce higher standards where separately they cannot,” he warned.