Records show Irish government raised concerns before Finucane murder
The Irish government raised concerns over claims made by a Tory minister that some lawyers in Northern Ireland were “unduly sympathetic to the IRA”, weeks before Pat Finucane was killed.
In an official Irish government note, released under the 30-year rule, it was revealed then taoiseach Charles Haughey and other senior members of his Cabinet were worried about the implications of Douglas Hogg’s remarks in the House of Commons.
Mr Finucane was shot 14 times in front of his wife and children by Ulster Defence Association gunmen in 1989. Three weeks before the Belfast solicitor was killed, Mr Hogg claimed in the Commons there were lawyers in Northern Ireland who were “unduly sympathetic to the IRA”. After the murder, Irish ambassador Andrew O’rourke asked Cabinet secretary Robin Butler to issue a statement “correcting any impression” the British government considered lawyers defending paramilitaries as acting on anything other than a professional basis.
In a meeting, a journalist was told by senior staff inside Number 10 there would be no retraction of Mr Hogg’s remarks, nor any public censure of the statement.
It emerged Mr Hogg believed he was safe because he “acted on official advice”, and he repeated the claims a number of times to “reflect” a precise official briefing. Mr Hogg told journalist Des Mccartan he had contemplated naming names which had been provided to him – but had decided not to as this would be an abuse of parliamentary privilege.
Mr Mccartan believed the advice came from the RUC through the Northern Ireland Office and the Home Office. It was claimed there was a list which named three nationalist solicitors, Mr Finucane, Oliver Kelly and Paddy Mcgrory, and two solicitors with “loyalist sympathies”. Similar claims were made in another government note dated February 13, 1989 in which an Irish official said they were concerned by rumours policemen had prompted loyalist paramilitaries in custody to attack solicitors acting for republican defendants.