Pat Finucane inquiry adds to questions over legacy

It is arguable that if the government has its way it may have just granted, in the case of Pat Finucane, the last public inquiry in respect of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The clue is contained in Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn’s statement to Parliament on Wednesday.

In every other case, it seems the aim is to directly bereaved families to a new independent legacy body – but there’s a major problem.

It is struggling to gain support and credibility – and that, for the government, is an issue made more urgent and demanding by the establishment of the Finucane inquiry.

The week started with news that the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) has had just 85 inquiries in its first four months.

So far, only eight of them will get investigation status.

For context, the ICRIR has a remit to examine many thousands of incidents between 1969 and the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

This can, at the behest of bereaved families and victims, be anything from a straightforward request for information to a full-blown investigation.

Benn points out that the commission has powers “comparable” to those in the Inquiries Act to compel witnesses and secure documents from state bodies.

Its budget could be up to £250m and it can operate for five years or more.

In respect of Mr Finucane’s murder, the government was on a hook and facing a deadline imposed by the courts.

The decision, decades overdue as far as the Finucane family is concerned, arrived at an awkward moment in terms of the wider legacy picture.

On assuming office, Labor pledged to repeal the Legacy Act and replace it.

The act was brought in by the last Conservative government, proposing to ban Troubles-era inquests and civil actions.

The move to repeal it was loudly and widely applauded – it means inquests and civil actions will return, at some point, and conditional immunity is off table.

So far, so popular.

But in pledging to retain the ICRIR, created under the act, the government has some very heavy lifting to do.

It was put to me this week that the secretary of state now realizes there is a much greater task regarding changes to the ICRIR than he first thought.

Root-and-branch reform looks to be required – to borrow the term recently used by Tanaiste (Irish Deputy PM) Micheál Martin.

But that might not be enough.

Others, such as Sinn Féín, think it should be scrapped and the page turned back to what is in the Stormont House Agreement of 2014 – which back then set out new approaches to legacy cases such as establishing a unit to examine unsolved murders during the 30 -yearconflict.

The government will also have an eye on a Court of Appeal judgment due soon on whether the ICRIR is capable of carrying out human rights complaint investigations.

It will also face a legal challenge over its rejection of a public inquiry into the murder of GAA official Sean Brown.

In granting a Finucane Inquiry, wounds from the Troubles were reopened.

The move, based on the “unique circumstances” of promises made in 2001 and 2004, has increased the pressure on Labor to find a fix for all other unresolved cases.

The ICRIR still appears, in many victims’ minds, contaminated by the previous government’s Legacy Act.

In sticking by it, Labor has a substantial repair job on its hands if it intends on telling other families there is a viable alternative to more public inquiries.