North inquiries cost more than £5m per year

Police in the North are spending more than £5m (€5.77m) a year to service public inquiries into controversial killings during the Troubles, the region’s chief constable revealed today.

Hugh Orde said the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s £100,000 (€115,000) a week costs were in addition to £250m (€288m)of taxpayers’ money that has already been spent on the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and three other independent probes into contentious incidents during the conflict.

The continuing financial commitment to the investigations comes as the service is attempting to manage a £130m (€150m) cut to its budget over the next three years.

Orde only achieved a balanced budget for this financial year after the British government gave him permission to draw down money from the 2010 budget.

As well as the near £200m (€230m) bill for Lord Saville’s re-investigation of Bloody Sunday, around £50m (€58m) has been spent on inquiries into the deaths of Rosemary Nelson, a solicitor killed by loyalists, Robert Hamill, a Catholic killed by a loyalist gang, and Billy Wright, a loyalist paramilitary leader gunned down by republicans while he was serving at the Maze prison.

Orde told members of his watchdog body – Northern Ireland Policing Board - that there was an urgent need for the British government to fund legacy issues separately so he could concentrate his resources on policing the present.

“There is one unique pressure, once you’ve taken out pay and pensions. It is the issue of legacy,” he said at the board’s monthly meeting in Belfast.

“It doesn’t go away and currently we are finding that legal costs to support those involved in public inquiries and support those independent investigations brought in by my predecessor to look for example, at the Rosemary Nelson case are increasing week on week.

“That’s not to mention the number of staff we are deploying in this area to support those inquiries.

Orde is also facing a potential legal bill of £87m (€100m) for officers who weren’t offered adequate hearing protection for firearms training during the Troubles era.

“Every penny I spend on these matters and, indeed, the legacy of the Stevens inquiry (into alleged loyalist collusion with security forces) comes out of current policing money and we now have to make a serious case, in my judgment, to look at how that expenditure can be dealt with.”