“waiting and worrying to see whether there will be a process around to deliver”

Set up in 2005 to investigate unresolved murders “attributed to the security situation” between 1969 and 1998, the Historical Enquiries Team’s remit, and its allocated £34million budget, runs out in 2011 – according to Hansard, estimated expenditure to 31 March 2007 was £9.9 million. But as HET Director Dave Cox told UTV only 580 cases have been completed to date, and nearly 2000 remain to be investigated. Of course by 2011, policing and justice powers may, or may not, be devolved. But if they are devolved by then, and that may depend on whether there’s agreement on how to police the present, it will be for the NI Executive to decide whether the HET’s work continues to be funded. And it wasn’t on the OFMDFM list.

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