Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the first question, I will follow up on the reports. I have no problem giving a full set of the reports to the Prime Minister.

We promised in the autumn to give time for a Dáil debate on the issue of collusion. We ran out of time before Christmas, at which point I said the debate would take place immediately after Christmas. As soon as we came back to do that, however, it was stated that we needed a motion. It was not what I had agreed to, but Justice for the Forgotten and some Members asked that I look at that. Deputy Costello has written to me about it and I said I would look at it. I was glad to provide time for the debate, as I had promised, and we did that. We had a long debate, positions were set out and the message from this House was made clear. If we can agree a comprehensive motion, that would be of assistance. I have no difficulty with it. If a motion can be agreed through the Whips, we can agree a time slot to debate it. I never had a problem with that and we will do so if it is helpful.

On the murder of Seamus Ludlow, I have been dealing with this issue for many years. I have been in contact with the Ludlow family and their supporters for many years. There is no doubt that how things happened at the time and what evolved from that led to a very unsatisfactory position. There is no argument about that. There were many arguments at the time, admittedly, and much publicity about what happened, but the fact is that all of that, as far as I am concerned, is now proved not to be so. Seamus Ludlow left the rear of the Ballymascanlon House Hotel on that sad night and was picked up by people who, if they were not well known then, are certainly well known now. There does not seem to be much dispute about who they were.

Whether we will ever prove all of these things is another question. The case remains the same and has remained the same for many years. Was it followed up and investigated by the Garda and was it all dealt with in a way that, all these years later, I can stand over with total confidence and say that I am absolutely happy was correct? No, I cannot do so. I have said this for many years. Can we get to the bottom of it now and get behind every circumstance of what happened? It is very difficult to do so. I am afraid it comes down to legal minds and whether they can formulate a way of dealing with it. I have apologised, as have the Garda Commissioner and others, to the Ludlow family. I met the entire Ludlow family and those who supported them through all these years at the recent meeting. We will be as helpful as we can.

Will we get any more information from the PSNI on this issue? I do not know. Can we get more information from the Garda? I hope so. As I said, the chief superintendent is examining this issue and going back over the files. Deputy Commissioner Laurence Wren was criticised in the report, but he went before the committee to give his account and refute that. It is disputed evidence. An investigation is ongoing into the issue. I must be honest before the House; on the advice I received after the first round, there does not seem to be a way of getting a tight investigation that can meaningfully deal with this issue. As Deputies know, some of the four people who are alleged to have been involved in the murder are no longer about, which makes it difficult to get information. I hope we can get a clear report from the Garda Síochána. I am not sure if we can do so in the case of the Office of the Attorney General. As I have said, I will try to help the family and its legal representative, who is dealing with the Attorney General.

This case is in our own jurisdiction. Several of the other cases are in Northern Ireland. There are many such cases. We do not need to go back through all the cases which were the subjects of the various Barron reports, all of which are finished. We have the issues. I have continued to lobby, and to have an active engagement in the British House of Commons and elsewhere, on the Finucane case. I think I will meet Judge Cory again tomorrow. We have continued to pursue that because it was part of the basis of the Weston Park agreement. We have got on with the Smithwick inquiry into the Breen and Buchanan killings. The same thing was supposed to happen in the Finucane case. We have kept up our pressure. I do not think we can get satisfactory results on all the other cases. We cannot have inquiries into all of them. We will not get behind the MI5 and MI6 information in many of the cases. It is my assessment that no British Government, of any persuasion or with any Prime Minister, will go behind that. I have had endless meetings, put endless pressure and done endless pressing in this regard.

I believe the British Government has an obligation to Geraldine Finucane because it was part of a separate deal. The historical inquiries commission and the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland can do a great deal of work in the other cases and we can continue our investigations. However, I would put Geraldine Finucane's campaign on behalf of her late husband in a different category. We remain in close contact with the Finucane family. Senior officials met Geraldine Finucane on 21 February 2007. I wrote to her personally at that time to assure her that the Government remains fully committed to supporting her and her family in seeking a full independent public judicial inquiry into her husband's murder. We have pressed that at every level within the British system and will continue to do so. At official meetings, there have been discussions on how best to progress the family's position. We are continuing our efforts on that. The Office of the Attorney General, the Department of Foreign Affairs and other bodies have been helpful. We are putting all our efforts into helping the Finucane family by exerting the maximum pressure on the British Government and the British system.

As of now, I do not get any sense from the British authorities that they are willing to meet the Finucane family's needs. However, we will not give up on this one. I know there is a view that there may be little point in holding an inquiry at all in the absence of agreement, particularly from the family, regarding such an inquiry. In my view, it would be an enormous tragedy if the truth of this case did not come out. Therefore, I hope we can still find a way to meet the family's needs. Every bit of evidence, including hearsay evidence and everything else we have been through on this — a lot of it is substantive enough — suggests that there was collusion. It is important that this issue is examined, at least. That would assist what the historical inquiries commission in Northern Ireland and other bodies can do in many of the other cases. We will continue to pursue the Geraldine Finucane case because it was part of an arrangement that was agreed in July 2001.

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