Question to the Northern Ireland Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what has been the cost to date of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, each of the inquiries required after Judge Corey's report, the de Silva Finucane inquiry, the budgeted ICRIR legacy inquiries, and the expected costs of a Finucane judicial inquiry.

The total cost of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry from 1998, when it was established, to the end of May 2010 when it concluded, was £191.2 million.

Judge Corey recommended that the Government hold public inquiries into the deaths of Rosemary Nelson, Billy Wright, Robert Hamill and Patrick Finucane. The Rosemary Nelson Inquiry and the Billy Wright Inquiry cost £46.46 million and £30.5 million respectively. As the Robert Hamill Inquiry Report is still to be published, final costs are not yet available.

Funding of £250m was agreed with HMT in 2023 to cover the implementation of all aspects of the Legacy Act 2023. The lion's share of this funding was for the establishment and operation of the ICRIR (£230m), with the remainder ring fenced for memorialisation and official history measures that seek to promote wider societal healing/reconciliation. This funding derived from the £150 million allocated to implement the Stormont House Agreement and £100 million allocated through the New Deal, New Approach agreement.

As outlined in the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland’s Oral Statement of 11 September 2024, the Government has considered the likely costs of the inquiry into the death of Patrick Finucane and its impact on the public finances. It is the Government’s expectation that the inquiry will - while doing everything that is required to discharge the State’s human rights obligations - avoid unnecessary costs given all the previous reviews and investigations and the large amount of information and material that is already in the public domain.

The Government takes reasonable steps to control the costs of inquiries, including capping legal costs as appropriate.