Pat Finucane murder: Analysis: ‘Shocking revelations add to pressure for full inquiry’

THAT security forces colluded with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland during the Troubles has long been common knowledge, but Prime Minister David Cameron was right yesterday when he described the levels of state collusion uncovered by Sir Desmond de Silva QC as “shocking”.

Sir Desmond found that the men who murdered solicitor Pat Finucane at his home in west Belfast in February 1989 were agents and informers working for the state, via the army’s Force Research Unit (FRU).

Shocking is the only word for it. The Royal Ulster Constabulary was aware of two previous plans to kill Mr Finucane, but declined to inform him. Sir Desmond also found that state forces were supplying the loyalist Ulster Defence Association with the bulk of its intelligence.

The shadowy FRU has already been implicated in the deaths of at least 14 Catholics in the 1980s, during which time British Army Intelligence Corps double agent Brian Nelson was also the intelligence chief for the UDA.

In 1990, Sir John Stevens found little evidence of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries, but the former head of the Metropolitan Police has since revised his view.

Mr Cameron has previously rejected calls for a full inquiry into Mr Finucane’s death, most volubly from the victim’s widow, Geraldine, but the pressure for a full investigation is only likely to grow. The scale of the collusion uncovered by Sir Desmond also begs the question whether an independent review is needed into all suspected cases of state collusion during the Troubles.

Such a process would doubtless prove controversial, for political and economic reasons. While Sinn Fein would almost certainly support the proposal, the Democratic Unionist party would oppose it.

Inquiries are expensive, too: the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday cost £191 million.

But an independent review could work if both the British and Irish governments committed to declassifying documents relating to the Troubles and to participating in a series of more focused reviews targeted at specific incidents where security force involvement has been questioned.

Shocking as it is, Sir Desmond’s report suggests that there is more to learn about the nature of the British state’s involvement in the chaotic violence of the Troubles.

• Peter Geoghegan is the author of A Difficult Difference: Race, Religion and the new Northern Ireland (Irish Academic Press)