6 Public inquiries
The future of public inquiries
116. The issue of public inquiries remains divisive
for Northern Ireland society. Various groups continue to put pressure
on the Government to undertake further large-scale inquiries into
events such as the Omagh bombing. However, as we have noted in
previous reports, those that have been undertaken have been long,
drawn out, and expensive. An oral question to the Secretary of
State in March revealed that the Saville inquiry and the current
public inquiries into the deaths of Rosemary Nelson, Billy Wright
and Robert Hamill are expected to cost over a quarter of a billion
pounds:
The Bloody Sunday inquiry is expected to cost
a total of £190 million, including costs incurred by the
ministry of Defence. The Hamill, Wright and Nelson inquiries are
expected to cost a combined total of £117 million. The total
cost, to the end of January 2009, of all public inquiries is £267
million, and 70 per cent. of these costs relate to the Bloody
Sunday Inquiry.[98]
117. The Consultative Group recommended that no further
public inquiries should be held and that all future investigations
be brought under the auspices of the Legacy Commission. Public
inquiries, it claimed, are "no longer the most appropriate
way to deal with the legacy of the past and bring no resolution
to families in historical cases".[99]
The Group would have liked to bring existing public inquiries
into the new process, but suggested that by the time the Commission
has been established it would be easier for this work to be completed
independently.
118. In our 2008 Report into the Cost of Policing
the Past in Northern Ireland, we recommended that no further
public inquiries be undertaken without cross-community agreement,
citing the unsustainable financial cost and pressure placed on
the PSNI.[100] While
we stand by this recommendation, we acknowledge the public demand
that still exists in relation to such inquiries. The Northern
Ireland Community Relations Council commented:
Council is concerned at the proposal that there
should be no more public inquiries. This proposal is absolute
and to close this avenue of addressing the past will create many
dilemmas. It is important this option is still available to those
who wish to pursue it.[101]
119. We recognise the role that public inquiries
play in terms of holding the Government and other public bodies
to account for their actions in relation to the events of the
past. We also acknowledge that such inquiries promise some degree
of resolution to families who feel that their cases have not been
effectively dealt with through the normal court system. However,
there remains a risk that such lengthy investigations are not
necessarily conducive to promoting reconciliation and may not
come to any new or satisfactory conclusions.
120. In our 2008 Report on Policing and Criminal
Justice in Northern Ireland, the Committee expressed a view
that any public inquiry beyond those currently under way should
depend on cross-community support from within the Northern Ireland
Assembly. However, the continuing demand for a mechanism to pursue
investigation cannot be ignored. If demand still exists once the
existing public inquiries and reviews of historical cases have
been completed, there may be a role for a body such as the proposed
Legacy Commission to undertake some form of thematic investigation
as an alternative. We would expect the full devolution of policing
and justice to have been achieved by the time that any such decisions
are taken. We recommend that necessary funding should then come
from the Northern Ireland Executive, rather than the UK Government.
98 HC Deb, 4 March 2009, col 259271 Back
99
Report of the Consultative Group on the Past, January 2009, p
154 Back
100
Third Report of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Session
2007-08, Policing and Criminal Justice in Northern Ireland: the
Cost of Policing the Past" HC 333, pp 35 - 36 Back
101
Ev 48 Back
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