Professor Kieran McEvoy:

As the Senator will be aware, the previous Lord Chief Justice came up with a five-year plan to deal with the legacy inquests that were still in the system. At that juncture, there were 50 cases involving 96 deaths. We are in year three of that plan, which was slightly delayed because of Covid. I do not know what will happen in that case, but the legislation is suggesting that one must reach a "substantive hearing", which, I believe, is the phrase used in the legislation. We were looking at the numbers this morning, and it looks to us as though there will be at least 24 cases in years four and five of people who will be cut off, basically because they were at the back of the queue. That is it. Families who have been waiting for more than 40 or 50 years will be told that they were a bit unlucky, that they ended up in year four or year five of the Lord Chief Justice's plan and that the guillotine is coming down, but not to worry because they are going to have a lovely museum, an oral history process or an official history of the conflict. That is not going to get their hearts racing. Can people imagine that a family was just unlucky to be in year four or five of the queue and therefore they are out?