Legacy cases could have been settled sooner, says lawyer

Civil cases related to the Troubles that have led to a £25m bill could have been settled sooner, at a lower cost, by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), a lawyer has said.

Padraig Ó Muirigh was responding to comments made by PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher to MPs on Wednesday, in which he said lawyers had received almost £18m of the £25m the PSNI has paid out to settle claims.

Mr Boutcher described legacy cases as “a green field site for lawyers” due to an “attritional approach by all security agencies around information disclosure”.

However Mr Ó Muirigh told Good Morning Ulster he believed that many of the cases he had been involved with “could have been dealt with much earlier”.

He said the PSNI’s approach “is to settle cases at a very late stage”.

Mr Ó Muirigh added that this was “to the detriment of families, who have been waiting decades – that is the key issue here”.

He told the programme the cases often involve “protracted discovery processes” and other legal applications, which “rack up costs” and appear to be down to “a policy of defending the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) at, literally, all costs”.

The RUC were the police force that proceeded the PSNI and existed during the Troubles, Northern Ireland’s 30-year period of conflict.

BBC News NI contacted the PSNI for comment but said it has “nothing further to add”.

The question of how to deal with criminal and civil cases related to the Troubles – known as legacy cases – has been a major political issue in recent years.

The UK government has begun the process of repealing the controversial Legacy Act, legislation introduced by the previous Conservative government that was opposed by political parties and victims groups in Northern Ireland.

The PSNI is currently dealing with 1,100 civil actions – in 2014, the figure was 150.

On Wednesday, Mr Boutcher told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster that the PSNI was not properly funded for legacy issues and that the costs it was paying out could pay for hundreds of extra officers.

“We are spending just over £20m a year. That would be about 400 police officers,” he said.

“But we’ve been left with this millstone, this anchor, that holds the PSNI back.

“It is a considerable burden on us.”

The PSNI’s costs cover not just court cases, but also operating its Legacy Investigations Branch (LIB).

Mr Ó Muirigh said that “legacy matters” and that it should not impact on the police’s budget.

“We had a Stormont House Agreement over 10 years ago, a political agreement, which has been failed to be implemented by successive British governments, which envisaged that legacy be removed from the PSNI.”

He added that it falls on the UK government to address the issue, saying that “legacy is toxic for everyday policing”.