The estimated total cost of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry to the Northern Ireland Office has risen by £20 million, a Stormont minister has revealed.

The Northern Ireland Office spent £56.8 million on the Saville inquiry from 1998 to March 2002 but said they believed the final figure could top £126 million.

Junior Northern Ireland Minister Des Browne, in a Commons written reply, said an estimated extra £15 million will go towards transferring the inquiry hearings to London this September.

The remaining £5 million will go on “solicitors for families”.

Mr Browne said: “The Senior Costs Judge’s judgment of March 21 implies additional expenditure of, on best current estimates, around £5 million on solicitors for the families. Expenditure on costs arising from the case is expected to run into several hundred of thousands of pounds.”

But if the government’s challenge to the ruling fails that will add an estimated sum of at least £6 million to the estimated £120 million cost Mr Browne said.

Fourteen people lost their lives on January 30 1972 when British paratroopers opened fire at a civil rights march in Londonderry.

The Bloody Sunday Inquiry which sits in the Guildhall Hall in Derry began their work nearly four years ago and are expected to report back in 2004. (AMcE)