Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to House. I am delighted he has come here and has made such a strong statement in support of this motion. I also welcome Mr. John Finucane, MP, to the House and send our solidarity to his mother who is watching tonight.

As my colleague, Senator Ó Donnghaile has said, Pat Finucane was a high-profile human rights lawyer. He was frequently in the courts defending people and in the media criticising the British Government's abuse of human rights. His murder by loyalists sent shock waves across the legal and political world here and internationally. Those who directed the loyalist killers, who we now know to have been the British Government, its intelligence agencies and crown forces, must have thought in 1989 that they had got away with one of the most brazen and blatant killings of the conflict. However, as we have heard tonight from many speakers, they failed to take into account the sheer determination of Geraldine Finucane, her children, Pat's legal partner Peter Madden and many other human rights organisations that have fought tooth and nail to uncover the truth about Pat's killing. In the course of the Finucane family's campaign to uncover the truth about Pat's killing, they have helped to expose a secret murder campaign by the British Government where it was killing its own citizens, the very people who it, as a government, was compelled to protect.

At the time of Pat Finucane’s killing the word "collusion", and the deadly nature and scale of collusion, were unknown when compared to the extent of our knowledge about them today. It took time and persistence on the part of the Finucane family, many organisations representing relatives of those who were killed in the conflict and human rights organisations monitoring the behaviour of the state and its agencies to reveal the true extent of the murder campaign. This secret murder campaign, which we now know as Britain's dirty war, relied on collusion between the British crown forces and loyalist paramilitaries. The plan was British Government-inspired and systematic. It resulted in the death of hundreds of people, overwhelmingly from the nationalist community of the North, but we cannot forget those who were killed in this jurisdiction in the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and other attacks.

The scale of the collusion and the resulting deaths and injuries is shocking; it is beyond belief. To grasp the enormity of what was going on I have selected three examples that demonstrate the scale of the British Government’s policy of collusion and how it actually operated on the ground. The investigative journalist Anne Cadwallader, who has been cited tonight by Senator Black, is a member of the Pat Finucane Centre, which is a human rights watch organisation based in Derry. She wrote a book, Lethal Allies, which tells the story of the Glenanne gang, a notorious murder squad who freely roamed counties Tyrone and Armagh, killing people at will. Its killing zone was known as the "murder triangle" and its members were drawn from the British army, the Ulster Defence Regiment, the RUC and loyalists. This book examined over 100 killings and in every single killing a member of the crown forces was involved. The film "Unquiet Graves", which was directed by Seán Murray, depicts on screen the catalogue of murder.

Finally, I cite two men who had first-hand experience of what collusion means in practical terms - what we might call the nuts and bolts of collusion. They knew how it worked in practice through the lines of communication from its political masters in Downing Street via its various state armed agencies to the loyalist killers themselves. They are Lord John Stevens, the former head of the Metropolitan Police in London, and the Canadian judge, Peter Cory. They carried out in-depth investigations into the collusive relationship between the British crown forces, the intelligence agencies and loyalist paramilitaries in the joint murderous enterprise which resulted in hundreds of people being killed in the North. According to the report of the Stevens inquiry:

Collusion ... ranges from the wilful failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and evidence, through to the extreme of agents being involved in murder.

Judge Peter Cory described collusion as "to cooperate secretly: to have a secret understanding ... to deliberately ignore; to overlook; to disregard; to pass over; to take no notice of; to turn a blind eye; to wink; to excuse; to condone; to look the other way; to let something ride". On the one hand, we have the colluders' handbook, the guide to adhere to and follow to ensure that like the three wise monkeys, one sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil. On the other hand, we have the killers' modus operandi, the method of operation which left people dead and injured. The killers and those who protected them from on high had a licence to kill, and kill they did.

I absolutely support this motion calling for a public and independent inquiry for Pat Finucane. I am grateful for the unanimity across the House in our call for that public and independent inquiry.