A police team which is considering over 3,000 Northern Ireland conflict deaths should cost much less than public inquiries into four controversial killings, PSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said tonight.
Sir Orde said the Historical Enquiries Team was making an honourable attempt to examine thousands of cases and warned that the impact of the four public inquiries could be marginal.
The British government has appointed panels to hold public inquiries into three deaths in which British security force collusion is suspected.
A fourth inquiry, into the 1989 murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, has been delayed. Sir Hugh said: "A piecemeal approach to history is doomed to fail and is divisive. I have been privileged to meet many families from across the divide during my time here and it is hard to explain why currently there is a hierarchy of deaths when it comes to looking backwards.
"It is worth noting that I constantly predict that the cost of the HET, which is an honourable attempt to examine thousands of cases, will cost substantially less than the legal costs of the latest public inquiries."
The HET, with a budget of £34 million, is re-examining 3,268 killings between 1969 and the 1998 Peace Accord. The team has another five years to complete its work, with a target of 40 cases a month, after being established last January.
Separate inquiries are to be held into the murders of Rosemary Nelson, Robert Hamill and Billy Wright. Solicitor Mrs Nelson was killed in an under-car booby trap bomb explosion outside her home in Lurgan, County Armagh, in 1999.
Loyalist Volunteer Force leader Billy Wright was murdered inside the Maze Prison by jailed Republicans in 1997. Mr Hamill, a Catholic, died in hospital after being attacked by a loyalist mob in Portadown in 1997. Mr Finucane was shot by members of the Loyalist Ulster Defence Association at his north Belfast home in 1989.