Mr. Colum Eastwood:

I thank John for his very powerful presentation. Nobody can talk about this issue in the way that he can. What the Finucane family has had to go through, not just on that terrible night in 1989, but over the past 30-odd years and the way they have been treated by the British Government and by elements of the media, has been nothing short of despicable and disgraceful.

The bottom line in this whole issue, in the short period of time I have, is that the British Government killed Pat Finucane and they killed many other people. They organised his murder because they saw him as a threat. Any state that does that and then continues to cover up that very fact needs to be held to account. There is widespread support across our island and in Westminster, and right around the world, for a full public judicial inquiry. Nothing else will do and nothing else will be acceptable. As John has said, it is not because the Finucanes feel that they are any more important or that their grief is any more important than anybody else's. They feel the exact opposite. It is because this particular murder gets to the very core of the British Government's activities in Ireland. I believe that it is possible, with a full public judicial inquiry, to prove that the British Government, as has already been accepted by David Cameron and many others, was very much involved in the murder of its own citizens in Ireland. This is an indictment upon that Government that needs to be rectified.

Looking back at the Weston Park talks, as John has noted the other inquiries that were granted have taken place and have reported. The only one that has not is the one that gets right to the heart of the British Government's involvement in the North of Ireland. That is very deliberate and is a shocking approach for any government to take. It has made a promise to this family. It has made a promise to the people who want to see an inquiry. They have totally and utterly reneged on that, as John has already observed. I will not say more than has John, except to state there is a number of days left for this British Government to do this. It has not done it for decades. It has not lived up to the responsibilities it signed up to at Weston Park. It has an opportunity now, in the dying days of this month, to finally and once and for all do what it has to do, which is to announce a full public judicial inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane. Nothing less will be enough.

As John has said, this is not going away. Those of us who support this campaign will not stop campaigning for it and will not stop supporting Pat Finucane's family. It is all set within the context of the British Government reneging on another promise, which was the agreement it made with the Irish Government and the parties in the North at Stormont House. It has very deliberately avoided having any level of accountability put onto its own actions, as carried out during the conflict in Northern Ireland. That cannot be allowed to stand. Our society cannot take it. We cannot leave the victims outside the room anymore. I do not believe we can fully or properly move on in a spirit of partnership and reconciliation unless we embrace the truth of what actually happened during those terrible years. That requires those people who know the most to come forward with that truth. Nothing else will do. We cannot leave the victims who suffered the most in all of this out in the cold and sacrificed at the altar of political expediency because of the Tory backbenchers or because of secrets that people do not want to come out. I do not believe we can properly move forward unless we do. The British Government has an opportunity in the dying days of this month to do the right thing for once and for all, and it should do it.