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Villiers: Money 'could be released to ease inquest backlog'

Secretary of State Theresa Villiers. Picture by Brian Lawless, Press Association
Secretary of State Theresa Villiers. Picture by Brian Lawless, Press Association Secretary of State Theresa Villiers. Picture by Brian Lawless, Press Association

SOME funding for legacy investigations could be released early to help ease the backlog of inquests, Secretary of State Theresa Villiers said.

In a major speech Ms Villiers said there is a "pressing need" to resolve legacy issues and the current structures were not working.

The coroner's court is struggling with a huge backlog that includes 56 legacy cases from the Troubles including the shooting dead of 10 people in Ballymurphy by the British army in 1971 and 'shoot to kill' deaths in the 1980s.

Ms Villiers indicated that some Stormont House legacy funding could be made available towards inquests.

"I understand the concern felt about resources and if reforms go forward, of course the UK Government would look very seriously at whether some of the Stormont House legacy funding could be released early to support inquests," she said.

She called on politicians to resolve a dispute that has endangered a £150 million package of measures designed to tackle the toxic legacy of the conflict.

The multimillion-pound funding commitment from the Government is on hold until a breakthrough is achieved.

The Conservative MP claimed the current controversies were placing disproportionate focus on cases where the state was involved or alleged to be involved.

Ms Villiers is due to deliver the speech in Belfast later today, but key extracts have been published by the Government beforehand.

Several new legacy mechanisms are trapped in the starting blocks due to the dispute over national security disclosure.

Among the initiatives on hold are a new independent unit to investigate unsolved murders, a truth recovery commission and academic projects to document the history of the Troubles.

Agreement has been reached on the majority of issues, but as the mechanisms are part of an inter-linked package, none will be implemented until the final sticking points are agreed.

The main stumbling block centres on a dispute between the Government and Sinn Féin over the extent of official documentation that will be disclosed to families of the bereaved.

The Government has pledged to disclose all files to the new Historical Investigations Unit (HIU), but has insisted it must retain the right to prevent onward dissemination of some papers to relatives on the grounds of national security.

A row over how families could challenge decisions to withhold disclosure remains outstanding, with consensus yet to be reached on the Government's proposal for appeals to go before a High Court judge.

Ms Villiers pledged to strive for a resolution, insisting a comprehensive deal on the past was close.

But she made the case for preventing disclosure of certain files on national security grounds and claimed that dissidents and Islamic extremists could benefit from classified information.

She said the State and security forces had released thousands of documents but it was "an inescapable fact that there is information which would put lives at risk if it were put into the public domain".

But she said the Government would not constantly seek to block "the onward disclosure by the HIU of information to victims' families and the public".

"The fact that disclosure of information may be embarrassing or difficult is not a justification to withholding it and no one is suggesting that it should be," she said.

She said her proposed High Court challenge system was "fair and reasonable".

Ms Villiers said she did not accept that the inquest problems stemmed from lack of a commitment on the part of the Government or the police and said the system was "never designed to cope" with a large number of complex cases.