Hugh Orde has made a considerable impact since his appointment as chief constable, but there will be genuine concern over his reported remarks on the Saville Tribunal.
Mr Orde was quoted yesterday (Tuesday) by the Financial Times as saying that the inquiry was likely to achieve little other than making millionaires out of lawyers.
He moved to clarify his position last night, but the impression remained that the chief constable regarded the entire inquiry as a deeply questionable exercise.
Although the final price of the tribunal – which he estimated at up to £200 million and which may certainly exceed £150 million – is alarming, Mr Orde might usefully have focussed a little more closely on how these costs have been generated.
Lawyers representing the Ministry of Defence have challenged almost every key decision taken by the inquiry since its launch.
Rulings relating to the identification of witnesses and the venue of hearings have been repeatedly appealed, adding significantly to the overall bill.
It also needs to be stressed that Saville was only authorised in the first place because Tony Blair accepted that the findings of the 1972 Widgery Tribunal were deficient and could no longer be sustained.
If the original public inquiry called by the British government of the day had been properly conducted, the case for a renewed investigation would almost certainly never had arisen.
All that the families of the Bloody Sunday dead and injured have ever sought is the truth about what happened on that fateful day.
Given that 14 innocent Derry people died at the hands of the forces of the state in a single afternoon, that is surely not too much to ask.
Perhaps the Saville Tribunal should have been more tightly structured or been instructed to operate within a clearly defined timetable.
However, those are issues for the British government and not the responsibility of the people of Derry.
What matters now is that the tribunal, having already made considerable progress in difficult circumstances, should be allowed to reach its conclusions as swiftly as possible.
