Stevens Report - Blair must keep pledge on inquiry

The suggestion

Mr Trimble would rather that Westminster's all-party Parliamentary Intelligence Committee, which sits in private, could examine what happened.

It is not surprising that he rejected calls for a full judicial investigation into the circumstances of the murders of Pat Finucane and Brian Lambert, and would prefer to have any inquiry held behind closed doors.

Mr Trimble displayed a remarkable insensitivity when he also remarked that the last thing they wanted is another full judicial inquiry when they see what is happening in terms of the time and money that has been expended elsewhere, in an obvious reference to the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday.

In his report, London Metropolitan Police Commissioner John Stevens drew attention to the fact that in 1989 Douglas Hogg, then a home office minister, told MPs in the Commons during an anti-terrorism legislation debate that some Northern Ireland solicitors were "unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA".

Less that a month later, loyalist gunmen murdered Mr Finucane at his home.

The point is that Mr Hogg was deliberately misled in his briefing by intelligence sources before he made his infamous and unjustified comment.

Too much secrecy and obstruction has already occurred in endeavouring to establish the depth and extent of the scandalous collusion that occurred.

Trying to cloak it in more secrecy, as Mr Trimble would appear to wish, cannot, and should not, be entertained.

What must happen now is that British Prime Minister Tony Blair honour an undertaking given to Geraldine Finucane, the solicitor's widow. He promised that he would initiate a public inquiry if it were found that members of the security forces were involved in killings.

That was incontrovertibly proven by the Stevens report and Mr Blair is honour-bound to fulfil that promise.

It is the opinion of the Irish Government that an independent public inquiry must be held into the murders and such a deep-rooted campaign against the nationalist community.

The SDLP and Mrs Finucane have called for a full inquiry.

Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen said the findings were of the utmost gravity and it was particularly disturbing that nationalists were known to be targeted but were not properly protected.

Mrs Finucane's call for a wider judicial inquiry has been given widespread support both at home and abroad including Belfast Lord Mayor Alex Maskey a loyalist target.

SDLP leader Mark Durkan, endorsing that support, referred to what he called a "betrayal of the nationalist community by the state" and posed the question as to what former Chief Constables Ronnie Flanagan and Hugh Annesley know, as well as former Northern Secretary Tom King and Margaret Thatcher.

Those are questions, along with a myriad others, that have to be answered in an open, transparent public inquiry.