Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

This debate takes place against a background of commitments made by two Governments but reneged upon by one of them. As long ago as May 2002, the British and Irish Governments announced the joint appointment of a judge of international standing to investigate allegations of collusion between their respective security forces and paramilitary bodies.

As the Minister has said, Judge Peter Cory's investigation covered six cases: the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan, Pat Finucane, Robert Hamill, Rosemary Nelson, Billy Wright, and Lord Justice and Lady Gibson. Deputy Glennon has vividly described the circumstances surrounding the murders of the last two people. The parts of the Cory report delivered to the Government were published first and with reasonable promptness. They were seen to be clear, simple and accessible. Judge Cory was rightly thanked for his work and a commitment to a public inquiry in this jurisdiction was made.

It is clear from the reports that there are compelling grounds for a public inquiry into the murders of Chief Superintendent Breen and Superintendent Buchanan, along the lines recommended by Judge Cory and with full powers to procure documents and compel witnesses, and into the extremely serious possibility that those murders were facilitated by collusion between some members of the Garda Síochána and the Provisional IRA. As the Minister stated, it is particularly important that anyone who has evidence to give should come forward.

The murders of the two policemen in 1989 were particularly brutal crimes, carried out in a way that betrayed cruelty and callousness. There is a particular onus on those who have demanded public inquiries into other murders, in respect of which reports from Judge Cory are still awaited, to ensure there is no obfuscation about urging their members and supporters to give the Breen and Buchanan inquiry their full co-operation.

It is worth quoting what Judge Cory, an independent judicial figure from Canada, had to say about the two officers who were murdered. He stated:

Chief Superintendent Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan demonstrated all the finest attributes required of policemen . . . To murder such men was a blow to their communities, to the residents of Northern Ireland, to all who believe in a democratic society and to all who understand the important role of the police in a democratic society.

It has been somewhat overlooked that the purpose of the meeting attended by the two officers at the Garda station in Dundalk was not about what is generally regarded as terrorist crime. It was to discuss the problem of cross-Border smuggling. Since 1989 we have learned much about how terrorism and what is called "normal" crime have become interlinked, and we know the extent to which major figures in the Provisional IRA in the south Armagh area in particular have personally benefited from smuggling and other areas of crime. I hope one area that will be examined by the tribunal is whether the two officers were specifically targeted because of their efforts to stamp out smuggling and thus undermine the personal criminal empires built up by the paramilitary godfathers along the Border.

I regret that it has taken 15 months since the publication of the Cory report to bring the appropriate motion before the Dáil to establish the tribunal, but the failures on the part of the British Government to meet its obligations arising from the Weston Park agreement are inexcusable. The British Government dithered and its delay in putting its side of the reports into the public domain created suspicion. It so frustrated Judge Cory that he directly contacted the families of Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson, Robert Hamill and Billy Wright to explain his point of view to them, personally, and to let them know he had in each case recommended public inquiries into the deaths.

In March of last year a decision in the Belfast High Court effectively required the British Government to set a date for publication of the then outstanding chapters of the Cory report dealing with the Finucane murder. We must remember that in the Weston Park proposals of 1 August 2001, both Governments committed that "in the event that a Public Inquiry is recommended in any case, the relevant Government will implement that recommendation". It was extraordinary that a judge of international standing, appointed by agreement between two states, felt compelled to go public and speak over the radio of his frustration about inaction on his report, and that the families of Pat Finucane and Billy Wright should unite in a High Court application to quash the British Government's delay in publishing his findings.

At the end of September last, the British Government announced that the long-delayed inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane and related issues of collusion between the RUC, British army and loyalist paramilitaries may be neither judicial nor public. It would not take place until amending legislation was passed, the effect of which would be effectively to fillet the tribunals of inquiry Act. The hostile reaction to this announcement from Nationalist representatives, human rights bodies and the Finucane family was understandable and entirely legitimate.

The 1966 report of the Royal Commission of Tribunals of Inquiry in the United Kingdom, otherwise known as the Salmon report, stated:

There are, however, exceptional cases in which [inquisitorial] procedures must be used to preserve the purity and integrity of our public life without which a successful democracy is impossible. It is essential that on the very rare occasions when crises of public confidence occur, the evil, if it exists, shall be exposed so that it may be rooted out; or if it does not exist, the public shall be satisfied that in reality there is no substance in the prevalent rumours and suspicions by which they have been disturbed. We are satisfied that this would be difficult, if not impossible, without public investigation by an inquisitorial tribunal possessing the powers conferred by the Act of 1921.

In the circumstances that Salmon described, namely, when a crisis of public confidence occurs, a public inquiry becomes necessary. That reality was reflected in the Government's response to the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on the Pat Finucane case. The court had ruled that the UK Government had failed adequately to investigate allegations that the security forces colluded in the murder of Mr. Finucane. The Taoiseach repeated his previous call for an independent public inquiry.

I joined with the Taoiseach, the Finucane family, the SDLP and others in restating my belief that a public inquiry was required. None of us meant by that a Government appointed, controlled and spancelled inquiry that conducted the bulk of its work in private. Because of its subject matter, a report from a body operating along those lines would fail the essential test. The manner in which the report was compiled and produced would not be conducive to public trust in its findings. As Judge Cory pointed out:

During the Weston Park negotiations, which were an integral part of the implementation of the Good Friday Accord, six cases were selected to be reviewed to determine whether a public inquiry should be held with regard to any of them. . . The failure to do so could be seen as a cynical breach of faith which could have unfortunate consequences for the Peace Accord. . . a speedy resolution is essential if the public confidence in the police and the administration of justice is to be restored. In this case only a public inquiry will suffice. Without public scrutiny, doubts based solely on myth and suspicion will linger long, fester and spread their malignant infection throughout the Republic and the Northern Ireland community... In those cases where such evidence has been found, the holding of a public inquiry as quickly as is reasonably possible is a small price to pay for a lasting peace.

Judge Cory also pointed out that at the time of the Weston Park agreement "the parties would have had in mind a public inquiry as that term was known in 2001".

It is a necessary function of our Government to ensure that its British counterpart complies with its commitments under an international agreement between both states. Following a meeting with Mr. Michael Finucane last January, when he outlined his fears about the new British Inquiries Bill, I wrote to Judge Cory. I outlined to him the concerns of many interested persons, extending well beyond the republican community, that the inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane which he had recommended would be delayed until new legislation was passed, which is entirely corrosive of public confidence in the integrity of the inquiry process. I enclosed with my letter an analysis by British Irish Rights Watch, an independent non-governmental organisation that has been monitoring the human rights dimension of the conflict and the peace process in Northern Ireland since 1990.

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