Christopher Walker, Twelve years, £191m and a verdict that may satisfy no-one

The process was begun two Governments and three prime ministers ago when, on January 29, 1998, Tony Blair established the inquiry into the events of January 30, 1972, when 14 people died after being shot by the British Army during a banned civil rights march against the policy of internment without trial.

The move was widely seen as one of the unavoidable moves needed to build the confidence of the province's minority Roman Catholic community vital to lay the ground for the Good Friday Agreement later the same year – the ground-breaking peace deal that led to the power- sharing devolved government now installed at Stormont.

But few could have predicted the nonsense the conduct of the inquiry, that has proved one of the longest and most costly in British and Irish history, would make of the then Prime Minister's resolution before the House of Commons: "It is expedient that a tribunal be established for inquiring into a definite matter of urgent public importance…"

"Expedient" and "urgent" are not words that could be applied to the rambling judicial process, whose hearings were all but completed in 2004, but has not managed to produce its gigantic 5,000 word report until today. An early hint of the many judicial records the hearings would break came with the opening speech of Saville's senior counsel, Christopher Clarke QC, which continued for 42 wearisome days and was the longest in British legal history.

In these days of government calls for austerity and reductions in almost every aspect of public expenditure, it is difficult to remember that his fees alone ran to 4.5m. Altogether, 19 lawyers became millionaires due to the proceedings of the inquiry.

To add to the growing atmosphere of unreality that surrounded proceedings, during which Madden and Finucane, the firm of solicitors most active among the families of the bereaved, received a mere 9.2m in fees, was the fact that much of the vital information went inexplicably missing.

Military photographs were "lost" and journalists found it hard to believe that helicopter surveillance footage stopped at the very point it might have been of evidential value. The sheer length of time since the original incident and the completion of Lord Saville's deliberations have ensured that the final report has, even before publication, been curtain-raised as both a probable anti-climax and an excessively costly example of the failure of the judicial process.

One possibility is that it will satisfy no-one except the aggrieved relatives of the dead, who have been agitating for years to counter the alleged "whitewash" of the first judicial inquiry under Lord Widgery.

While Lord Saville's efforts are widely agreed to have been clumsily over-extended, Widgery's perfunctory performance, published just two-and-a-half months after the day of the killings, and running to only 39 pages, was seen as too hasty. It also contained unspecified allegations, especially the former Lord Chief Justice's conclusion that while none of those killed or wounded was "proved to have been shot while handling a firearm or a gun", there was "a strong suspicion that some others had been firing weapons or handling bombs in the course of the afternoon".

Lord Saville's follow-up, published five years late even by his own self-declared timetable, is likely to be judged by the answer he gives to the key outstanding question – were the deceased all innocent, as repeatedly declared in their defence?

He will also have to determine whether there was any higher official sanction for the shootings. Under consideration in this regard will be the damning memo from the then commander of Land Forces Northern Ireland, Major-General Robert Ford to the general officer commanding. Written about three weeks before Bloody Sunday, it stated: "I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force needed to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders amongst the DYH (Derry Young Hooligans), after clear warnings have been issued."

Whatever the final conclusion, many leading lawyers and politicians are in agreement that Britain will never again have to endure a judicial inquiry that will last so long or cost so much to the public purse.