Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Will the Taoiseach join me in acknowledging that the Finucane family has not objected to the release of Mr. Barrett under the Good Friday Agreement but rather has stated that he was a British agent who was protected at every stage? Clearly, a deal was done and a guilty plea entered into, which prevented the full truth from emerging. It was an exercise in ensuring that the role of the British forces in the murder of Pat Finucane remained behind a dark screen.

The same happened with the other British agent, Brian Nelson, who was also involved in the murder of Pat Finucane. British collusion is ongoing. Does the Taoiseach not recognise that the British continue to protect their agents and there is a bounden responsibility on him not simply to accept that there is a difference between himself and the British Prime Minister, but to take up the gauntlet in the interests of the Finucane family and of truth and justice? Will he not seek a summit with the Prime Minister that focuses on the issue of collusion such as we have proposed time and again? It is not enough to let Tony Blair off the hook. He must be forced, in the full glare of the international media, to face this issue directly with the Taoiseach.

We are confident the Taoiseach will put the case but we ask that he seize the moment and put the British Prime Minister in the dock on this issue to prise from him an agreement to set up the full independent public inquiry for which the Finucane family has called, and which it deserves. Will the Taoiseach internationalise this call and bring it before the European Union and the United Nations? There are steps he can take.

Will he press ahead with the plan and proposals in respect of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings as presented by Justice for the Forgotten? On this day, 15 years after Eddie Fullerton's cruel murder, I ask the Taoiseach to heed the appeal of the Fullerton family to establish a full public inquiry into the murder of an elected representative.

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