Minister for Foreign Affairs Accepted "Every Word" That Officers Suspected of Collusion in Murder of Pat Finucane Would Be Arrrested
Irish Times/Eamon Phoenix | 02 January 2018
In 1991, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gerry Collins, accepted without question the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Jack Hermon's assurances that any officer suspected of collusion in the murder of Pat Finucane would be arrested.
We now know, from the de Silva Report into the murder of Pat Finucane, that 85% of all loyalist intelligence was sourced from within British and RUC files.
Sir John Stevens, who conducted three inquiries into Pat Finucane's murder, also reported that virtually all of the loyalist suspects he arrested were also in the pay of British security agencies.
In 1991, however, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gerry Collins, accepted "everything the Chief Constable had said" that any officer suspected of collusion in Pat Finucane's murder would be arrested.
The dissonance between the 1991 version of the facts, and the one now known to be true cannot, surely, be explained by hindsight.
Was Collins correct to accept Sir John Hermon's assurances without question? Should he have pressed the RUC on how Special Branch handled agents?
In the light of the trial of Gary Haggerty, and others, we now know the then Irish government was not given the unvarnished truth.