A NEW forensics laboratory and greater training for the judiciary about the science are badly needed and should be provided without cost constraints, a powerful group of Westminster MPs has urged.
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee said yesterday the current provision was not fit for purpose. The MPs further argued that serious criminal cases, such as the Omagh bombing, would increasingly rely on forensic evidence, and more government investment was urgently needed.
Since 1992, Forensic Science Northern Ireland (FSNI) has operated from temporary accommodation on a police site in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, after its Belfast premises were destroyed by an IRA bomb. Evidence linked to serious criminal cases was lost in the explosion.
An inspection report in July 2009 by Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland noted that “the current premises are increasingly unfit for purpose”.
In response to the MPs, the Criminal Justice Minister Paul Goggins said £12 million had already been set aside to deliver a new facility by 2012.
The committee paid tribute “to the quality of the work of FSNI in “clearly inadequate and unsuitable premises”.