What we do know, is that since Tony Blair announced this inquiry to the commons in 1998, it will have cost the taxpayer nearly £200 million; £100 million of which has gone in solicitors and barristers fees, making, as a direct consequence of such largess, many millionaires within the legal profession.
The only winners are, as usual, the lawyers, who since 1998 have dipped their beaks in that lucrative trough known as the public purse. The victim's families themselves will never be comforted by such financial generosity - and those soldiers involved in the killings, may now face prosecution.
I feel great sympathy for the families of the victims of that terrible day; although, if they were to read what follows, I have no doubt that they will think such an expression somewhat insincere. I cannot imagine their loss and the circumstance surrounding it; but I am capable, through personal experience, of understanding what long ago events have put them through.
But apart from Bloody Sunday, as Douglas Murry has pointed out in today's Mail on Sunday, "What about bloody Omagh, Brighton, [and] Enniskillen......" Today we have Sinn Fein, once the political wing of the IRA, now in government in Northern Ireland as part of a so-called peace and reconciliation process. Gerry Adams, who has far more blood on his hands than any of the paratroopers who were present on Bloody Sunday, is now a minister in the province. Martin McGuinness (who I read was carrying a machine gun on that fateful day), has always been his inseparable Siamese twin, and who is also a minister in the province.
On top of which IRA members have been conditionally released from prison for their crimes, by an amnesty that sought reconciliation within the province. As part of a kind of South African process of peace and reconciliation, the first Blair government brought about the release of many republican inmates, and promised an inquiry into Bloody Sunday. So while many a republican prisoner has been released; and while the province's government is being served by the leaders of the IRA's political wing, five British paratroopers (those found to be most culpable) may now face prosecution for their part in the events of Bloody Sunday: as scapegoats, these five individuals may now find themselves on trial with the possibility of serving a very long prison sentence.
The parachute regiment was deployed by politicians to Northern Ireland, when the province was thought to be on the brink of civil war, and at the time our politicians were desperate and thankful to the Paras for their presence. The regiment is the toughest and boldest in the British Army; it was never intended for the kind of policing action they were given in Londonderry. These are elite front line soldiers whose specialty is aggressive and uncompromising soldering of the kind they displayed in Serra Leone. They are of necessity tough and brutal men (professionally speaking), trained to be placed in the most difficult of situations demanded in warfare.
They should never have been sent to Northern Ireland at that time by their political masters, who now seem to be missing from the cast list of the inquiry. Yet it is they who are far more culpable for what happened on that day in January 1972, than the military. The Paras were ill-used and have now become the scapegoat. The deaths of those demonstrators have satined the reputation of the British army; the Paras may have pulled the triggers but the politicians pointed the guns. They did so by deploying the parachute regiment to carry out such a task in the first place.
The Saville Inquiry's results should prove interesting for the coalition government. Will this government kowtow to republican sentiment in Northern Island as the last Labour government did, and be prepared to prosecute these servicemen if the inquiry demands it? This will be a true test of the coalition over an issue that splits them. If it is decided those paratroopers should be sent to trial, then why not Adams and MacGuinness ?
I know it is very difficult for the families of those killed on Bloody Sunday to accept that those soldiers who killed their loved ones should be allowed to retain their freedom. But in Londonderry on that day, the paratroopers were ill-trained for civilian purpose and inappropriately used. At the time of the Paras deployment I can remember thinking to myself that the then Minister of Defense, Jim Callaghan's decision to deploy military forces in 1969, must have signaled to the Irish republicans a state of panic. But by involving the Paras in Northern Ireland in the first place proved deleterious to the regiments's reputation.
I was at the time a Republican supporter and romantic as far as anything Irish was concerned. But I heard an interesting statistic the other day from someone on Sky News. The British army were responsible for 10% of all deaths during the conflict, while the Unionists were the cause of 30% of all deaths. However the Provisional IRA had the dubious title of killing the most people ( 60%).
If those paratroopers who killed those 14 people on Bloody Sunday, one day find themselves in a court of law, then I hope the British people will make their feelings heard. If Cameron and Clegg accept any finding that promotes these former soldier's prosecution, then I hope for once the people will stand by those to be scapegoated and haunt this coalition out of office.
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