Mr. P?draig ? Muirigh:

Regarding vexatious cases, it is a matter for the court to determine whether a case is vexatious. Any court or judge would throw out a vexatious case. I provided examples in my statistics. I have had 15 inquests into deaths arising from legacy cases. In all 15, the force used was not justified and the deceased were innocent. I have settled a number of civil actions in respect of legacy matters – all of those were settled successfully. I cannot go into some of the details, for example, the amounts awarded, but it was a large number of cases with successful outcomes for families. I have yet to see or deal with a vexatious case. All of these are grounded on allegations of collusion or lethal force being used by the state in very controversial circumstances. I reject entirely the notion of them being vexatious. There is no basis for that assertion. It is simply a Tory minister playing politics with the issue.

Mr. Brady’s question was on confidence in the new body. I have to say that there is no confidence. I have met a large number of families in recent weeks since the passing of the Act. Some of them have been one-to-one meetings, others have been public meetings. I have yet to hear anyone advocate using the new process. There are many reasons for that. It is not an independent court or body such as the Police Ombudsman. It is a creature of the Executive, controlled by the British Secretary of State. I just went through the legislation in preparation for this meeting, so I will give some examples of the powers of the British Secretary of State. The Secretary of State appoints the commissioners under Schedule 1, has control over information disclosed by the commission, determines the terms and duration of the appointments of commissioners, has control over funding, must review the performance of the commission, and may make regulations winding it up. The British Secretary of State’s control over the commission is also clear from the fact that the commission must report to him. The Secretary of State controls much of that office in many ways, so families have no confidence in the process. The process is very inferior to the piecemeal mechanisms currently available to families.