Irish fobbed off on Finucane

There’s a real gem buried in the communique from yesterday’s British-Irish Inter-governmental Conference here:

The British Government reported that the legislation under which they intend to establish the Inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane continued its passage through parliament.  The Irish Government requested that the Finucane Inquiry be set up in line with the Weston Park commitments. The British Government stated that it would be.

Quite so, apart from the fact that the British Government specifically committed itself to a public inquiry at Weston Park, and the new legislation is so restrictive that the British Government didn’t even dare call it a ‘public’ inquiries bill.

This bill was specifically introduced because of the Finucane case, a case in which Canadian judge Peter Cory found evidence of collusion by the RUC Special Branch, the British Army’s Force Research Unit and MI5.

For a detailed briefing on the legislation visit British-Irish Human Rights Watch.

For more about the Finucane family’s fight for a full public inquiry visit the Pat Finucane Centre site.