Questions have been raised over the number of cases being investigated by a contentious legacy body.
Earlier this week the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) said “there have been eight requests for investigation now at the information recovery stage”.
When pressed to confirm if this relates to eight individual and separate investigations, the commission did not respond directly.
Officials were also asked that if it does not, how many individual and separate investigations do the eight requests relate to?
In a statement a spokeswoman said: “Victims, survivors and families, who are at the heart of what we’re doing, have expressed to us that they want their privacy respected and that they do not want to be treated as statistics or numbers.
“It’s important that we balance the wishes of victims, survivors and families with our value of openness.
“We have provided the level of information that we can at this stage, on the commission’s website.”
Director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice Daniel Holder raised concerns.
“This is an odd response from the ICRIR, who should be transparent. The response implies it’s possible there are currently fewer than eight cases,” he said.
“Whilst the low case numbers may be seen as an indicator the ICRIR is not working we should not forget it’s a success for those Tory architects of the ICRIR whose agenda was to shut down legacy investigations.
“Many hundreds were shut down on the 1 May.”
Established by the Conservative Party, many victims and relatives are strongly opposed to the ICRIR, believing it to be part of British government attempts to protect state participants from accountability.
