First there was the war. Then came the peace. Now we are entering the inquiry process. Lord Saville's Bloody Sunday inquiry is still running. The Barron Report into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings has recently raised British security force collusion and questioned the Fine Gael/Labour government's enthusiasm for pursuing the bombers.
This week the Nally Report into the Omagh bombing was shelved but Bertie Ahern agreed to the Cory Report's proposed inquiry into the killings of two senior RUC officers.
And all the while Tony Blair is sitting on Judge Cory's findings into other killings here including those of Rosemary Nelson and Pat Finucane. Inquiries into these and other deaths cannot be ruled out.
So how useful is the inquiry process?
The key point is that the relatives of all those killed in the circumstances investigated by these inquiries have the right to establish the truth about the deaths of their loved ones. But establishing that right raises the rights of all those who lost loved ones in the violence here. The difficulty with the inquiry process is that so far it has been focussed on selective cases which arose during political negotiations.
Actual and potential inquiries have concentrated mainly on incidents which might be called high profile either by virtue of the number killed at the one time or through the status of the individual(s) involved.
Thus while the army's killing of 13 people at the one time in Derry merits an inquiry, its killing of other civilians in smaller numbers in other incidents apparently does not.
Another selective element is that calls for inquiries have applied mainly to allegations of wrong-doing by governments or their agencies. This is presumably because governments are required to behave within the law but paramilitaries by definition are not bound by the same rules.
Hence the question as to whether relatives of victims of Bloody Friday, for example, will have the same opportunity to establish the facts as has been afforded relatives of the Bloody Sunday victims. An inquiry for one implies the right to an inquiry for all. If this is not the case, which single death in our 30 years of violence is not worth looking into?
Of course not all relatives will necessarily want an inquiry. Some will. Some will want to forget and some will just quietly weep at their loss on Christmas Day as they do on every other day.
Possible inquiries into more than 3,000 deaths, however, would present huge logistical problems and raise a series of complex legal issues ranging from liability to possible compensation. Proposing such a process may not be realistic. But avoiding it by concentrating on a few selective incidents runs the risk of portraying some of the dead as victims and others as legitimate targets.
Tony Blair may be stalling on publishing Cory's findings for other reasons, but there is much truth in the claim that his government faces massive legal implications for hundreds of deaths here if it holds public inquiries into four selected killings. But that was the risk he ran in using justice and truth as bargaining tools in political negotiations. There is also the likelihood that the inquiries will offer political comfort to the two parties which he might have preferred not to win the recent election.
For example the Saville Inquiry has, if anything, enhanced Martin McGuinness's reputation – through no fault of his. Mark Durkan, meanwhile, has just not figured in the story.
David Trimble might gain some credit for Cory's investigations but Peter Robinson may gain more electoral benefit from the findings of Dublin government's inquiry into the RUC deaths.
This is not to suggest that public inquiries should not be held. They should. But the limitations – and the political implications – of their selective use should be recognised.
As currently structured they are politically negotiated snap-shots of a troubled history.
They will often fail to find the full truth and their findings will inevitably play a role in shaping the hearts and minds of the two electoral camps in a divided community.
Thus there is a temptation to conclude that much of what is happening is a continuation of the war whereby each side is trying to use – or avoid – the inquiry process to gain the political and moral high ground. War may be an extension of history.
The danger in this country is that by investigating some deaths and ignoring others we may now be writing history simply as an extension of war.
