Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable George Hamilton told the Press Association he was frustrated that the plan for new structures was not “one further inch forward” three years after a political deal was struck on how to deal with unresolved cases, the News Letter reports.

He added that the police were being left to “soak up” issues that should be addressed by the new mechanisms.

The PSNI head said this was taking a heavy toll on the service in terms of both costs and public confidence and that he felt he was in an “impossible” situation.

“Three years has come and gone and they are actually not one further inch forward, they are still waiting to finalise the deal and to do consultations and all the rest of it - I’ve been getting told that for three years now,” he told the Press Association.

“The whole thing is borne out of a sense of ‘can you just get on with this please’.

“And actually if Sinn Fein and the DUP and the political parties here can’t get to a consensus to drive it forward in a devolved space, then London need to just get on with it.”

He added: “It’s almost as if in the absence of politicians doing anything about this, letting it trundle along, the police are having to soak all this up both financially and in terms of public confidence.

“And I suppose I am really saying to them, ‘how high a price are you willing to pay?’.

“Because it is policing that is actually paying that cost at the moment in terms of public confidence and also the financial aspect of it.”

A number of disputes have meant that the Stormont House proposals, including a truth recovery body, an oral archive and an independent investigatory unit have made no progress.