Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

For many decades nothing happened on all of these matters. In recent years, however, we have worked through Mr. Justice Hamilton, Mr. Justice Barron, the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights and, currently, the Commissions of Investigation Act to obtain and make available as much detail as we can from the British system, the Northern Ireland Office and the Garda Síochána. As I have done with all these reports, it is my intention to place the MacEntee report in the Oireachtas Library and furnish a copy to the committee that has dealt with these matters for a number of years. It will be for the committee to see how these matters will be progressed. Given the holistic approach to this and other reports, we have succeeded in throwing more light on issues about which almost no factual information was in the public domain up to now. The Commissions of Investigation Act allows us to deal with such issues.

As regards the Finucane case, we have not changed our position; we continue to seek an inquiry by the British Government into that matter. The British legislation is different from ours because it allows a Minister to engage with, become directly involved in and limit information. Our Act does not do so.

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