Around £18.5 million has been spent so far on three inquiries into controversial murders in Northern Ireland, Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde revealed today.
He warned that society in the North needed to get to grips with the issue of addressing the past, ensuring that it did not affect confidence in policing today.
He also claimed some of the money that has been spent on inquiries could have built two police training colleges and a hospital.
"I think dealing with the past in the current way is a huge money-sucking venture because it deals with these people called lawyers," Sir Hugh said.
"As I understand it, there was a parliamentary question last month which said £18.5 million was spent so far on the (Rosemary) Nelson, (Billy) Wright and (Robert) Hamill inquiries.
"Now, unless I have missed it, there has not been a day's hearing in those.
"I had to appoint an Assistant Chief Constable to do nothing but deal with requests and demands from the many different agencies dealing with historical stuff and we are doing our level best to provide intelligence which goes back 30 years - in some cases from legacy systems which are paper systems."
PA