A unit within the PSNI's Historical Enquiries Team (HET) is to investigate allegations of state collusion in sectarian murders in Northern Ireland, an Oireachtas subcommittee heard yesterday.
Addressing a meeting of the justice subcommittee set up to examine the Barron Report on the bombing of Kay's Tavern in Dundalk, David Cox, director of the HET, said the unit would analyse links between individual murders.
It would be based in London for a variety of reasons, among them cost considerations, and would differ from standard HET investigations which primarily attempt to answer the questions of victim's families.
The HET is re-examining 3,268 unsolved murders committed between 1969 and the 1998 Belfast Agreement. It is envisaged that the work of the unit, which has yet to be established, will feed into the overall work of the HET's other two units.
Mr Cox, a retired London Metropolitan police commander, said the investigators will be vetted to ensure they have no previous connection with Northern Ireland.
Among the first cases to be passed to the new unit will be those involving the so-called "Glenanne gang", a loyalist grouping including serving members of the Ulster Defence Regiment and the RUC which is suspected of involvement in a range of atrocities.
In the first address by a Northern Irish head of police to the committee, the PSNI chief constable, Sir Hugh Orde, said it was his view that there would only be a small number of prosecutions as a result of the HET's work. Where sentences were handed down, he also expected these to be limited in nature.
He said the vast majority of murders which were committed during the Troubles were done by loyalist and republican terrorists, and did not involve collusion. These people would themselves say they did not need the assistance of the government to kill.
But he acknowledged that this meant "nothing to the families," and pledged that anyone who was guilty of a criminal offence would be prosecuted where possible.
Sir Hugh said on assuming his role in 2002 he had ordered a review of all agents used by the PSNI. As a result, a number of agents were "decommissioned".
"If an informer steps outside their authority, then all bets are off. It's a simple as that," he said.
Questioned by committee members on the HET's level of access to information held by other British government agencies, Sir Hugh said the vast majority of this information was held by the PSNI. A "memorandum of understanding" has been drawn up between investigators and the military authorities - including MI5 and MI6 - on the sharing of intelligence but this was subject to security clearance, Mr Cox said.
Speaking about his offer to address Sinn Féin's ardfheis, Sir Hugh said he had "yet to receive my invitation". But he added that it was critical for Sinn Féin to support the new policing arrangements in the North and take their seats on the policing board.