Patrick Finucane Report

Alasdair McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend puts the point incredibly clearly. There are some very shocking things in this report. What perhaps shocked me the most are some of the things that happened after the murder took place. The fact that someone who was effectively one of those responsible for the murder was then hired as an agent is truly shocking. The fact that the Army—it says here—did not co-operate properly with the Stevens inquiry, and effectively lied to it, is shocking. That is why it is so important that we lay this bare. The point my right hon. and learned Friend makes about never descending to that level is that whatever battle we are fighting against terror—and we are fighting battles against terror all the time—we have to maintain that we are at all times obeying the rule of law.

[Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

I thank the Prime Minister for his efforts and his statement, which is indeed very welcome. I welcome the report, given its limitations, in so far as it takes us a little further down the road towards truth. It provides some further chilling detail for this House about what many of us already know, but in my opinion it falls far short and does not go far enough. It helps that some of the frightening details have emerged in the report, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s comments about what happened after the murder. For me, that is significant, because it is only a continuation of some things that were done before the murder, which Sir Desmond was not able to confirm, and there was a deep conspiracy running through the elements that were involved.

There was failure, obstruction and general neglect of duty—the fact that the Army was not able to co-operate with Stevens; the fact that a Minister of this House was misled and misinformed prior to the murder, and made statements to this House. Indeed, my colleague Seamus Mallon, a former Member of this House, made reference to the very point, on the day that statement was made, that this would cost lives.

The report confirms that the UDA was steered and prompted to murder Pat Finucane by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary special branch, which should have been performing the role of questioning and putting people in prison. The UDA gunman was coached as to who might be targeted for murder—two other lawyers were targeted as well. Police files were handed to the UDA for further murder operations, involving not just those three lawyers but further people.

I was very proud to stand with the Finucane family in those desperate times at Pat’s funeral, as they buried him. The Social Democratic and Labour party and I will stand with them today—and indeed into the future—because we support their demand for a full public inquiry. We feel that we have still got only half the truth out. This report confirms why Judge Cory was right, as the family were right, to demand an open, international, independent inquiry. There are people out there who should be held to account, even though it is 23 years too late. In the light of this report, I ask the Prime Minister to reconsider and agree to the family’s request for a full inquiry and prosecutions.

Beyond that, the Finucane report confirms the case for a comprehensive truth process, which we all need. The need for such a process grows more urgent by the day. I echo the words of other colleagues. We should not set our standards by the standards of the Provisional IRA or any loyalist group, so will the Prime Minister please reconsider and allow a full inquiry?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question. I know that he speaks with real knowledge, passion and interest on this issue. First, on how we have a process in Northern Ireland of getting to the truth in more of these cases, I commend the work of the Historical Enquiries Team. It has done good work, it can continue to do good work and we should continue to fund it so that it can do so.

On whether an inquiry would find out more, I would make two points. First, if we have an inquiry process, the whole process, as we saw with Saville, would start with an enormous discussion about who had anonymity and how the case would proceed. In the case of Saville, that went on for many years before the investigation started. If we look at other public inquiries, I would argue that some of them have got less close to the truth than this report.

I would make one further point, which is that the Stevens process was an investigation with the full powers of a criminal investigation. Now it is open to the authorities, if they want, to repeat that process. That combination of having had a criminal investigation—which made some progress and led to a prosecution—having had the fullest possible disclosure of all the documents and all the evidence, and then saying to the prosecuting and other authorities that it is up to them, if they believe there is further work that can be done, is the right approach. It is faster and more effective than either starting with a public inquiry process now or, had we or a previous Government done so a few years ago, having one that would only just be getting into gear now.