NI inquiries must be cost-effective - Murphy

Inquiries into controversial killings in Northern Ireland must be cost-effective and avoid unnecessary expenditure, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Paul Murphy said today.

Senior or retired judges are to be appointed to head up the public probes into the murders of human rights lawyer Rosemary Nelson, loyalist paramilitary boss Billy Wright and Catholic Robert Hamill, who was kicked to death.

It will be later this year before dates are set for the inquiries to begin.

But with the British government under major pressure over the estimated £155m (€232m) costs of the Bloody Sunday Tribunal in Derry, Mr Murphy made it clear expenditure for these tribunals would not be on the same scale.

In a written statement outlining progress towards establishing the tribunals, he said: “Just as it is important for the inquiries to be effective in getting the facts, it is important that they should seek to do so in a cost-effective manner."

The British government agreed to set up the inquiries after separate investigations carried out by retired Canadian Judge Peter Cory, who was called in amid claims of security force collusion in killings.

Mr Wright was shot dead inside the Maze Prison by republicans in December 1997, Mrs Nelson was blown up by a loyalist bomb outside her home in Lurgan, Co Armagh, in March 1999, and Mr Hamill was kicked to death by loyalists in the centre of Portadown, Co Armagh, in May 1997.