:00:00. > :00:00.school. The militant group Boko Haram is being blamed for the attack
:00:00. > :00:15.as well as a bomb attack in the capital Abuja, which killed 70. Time
:00:16. > :00:19.for HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. Healing a society traumatised by
:00:20. > :00:25.sectarian violence is hard. Anyone doubting that should take a look at
:00:26. > :00:31.Northern Ireland today. The de facto war between the IRA and the British
:00:32. > :00:36.state is over but a legacy of richness `` bitterness remains. My
:00:37. > :00:42.guest today is Geraldine Finucane, whose husband Patrick, a Catholic
:00:43. > :00:44.lawyer, was murdered 25 years ago. The killing exposed collusion
:00:45. > :00:50.between the British security services and Protestant
:00:51. > :00:53.paramilitaries. The Finucane family still wants a full public inquiry,
:00:54. > :01:20.but for the greater good of Northern Ireland, is it time to move on?
:01:21. > :01:28.Geraldine Finucane, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. It is nice to
:01:29. > :01:35.be here. We must start with the cataclysmic events that happened in
:01:36. > :01:40.your family in 1989 when your husband Pat was brutally murdered.
:01:41. > :01:47.Does it feel, 25 years on, that event has shaped your entire life?
:01:48. > :01:50.It has not shaped my entire life. My entire life was beginning to be
:01:51. > :01:57.shaped when I met Pat Finucane, for starters, but certainly, I would not
:01:58. > :02:03.be here having an interview on HARDtalk, I would not imagine, if
:02:04. > :02:08.Pat had not been murdered and I have not pursued the questions that I
:02:09. > :02:12.thought needed to be asked. And you have pursued those questions for 25
:02:13. > :02:20.years. I wonder if at any point in those 25 years, you thought to
:02:21. > :02:25.yourself, enough. No, I have never thought enough because I have always
:02:26. > :02:31.wanted answers and I'm prepared to wait until I get the answers. I
:02:32. > :02:38.would like to go back to your relationship with Pat Finucane and I
:02:39. > :02:41.want you to put it in context for me. He was a working`class Catholic
:02:42. > :02:45.boy from West Belfast. You were a young woman from a middle`class
:02:46. > :02:54.family in Protestant East Belfast. How did you get together? It was
:02:55. > :02:59.when we went to university. My friends's boyfriend was a football
:03:00. > :03:02.player and I had to go with her to watch the football matches because
:03:03. > :03:06.she would not go on her own. Pat Finucane was playing football and we
:03:07. > :03:12.hung out with the football team and the rest is history. You make it
:03:13. > :03:16.sound quite straightforward but it was pretty extraordinary, wasn't it?
:03:17. > :03:19.Because you must both have been aware that by becoming friendly with
:03:20. > :03:29.each other and falling in love with each other, you were in some senses
:03:30. > :03:38.breaking a taboo in Northern Ireland. I did not know that I was.
:03:39. > :03:43.And we were in Dublin. But you carry Northern Ireland with you. Your
:03:44. > :03:47.background, your past, your culture. I came from a very Protestant middle
:03:48. > :03:52.class background and to be honest, when the trouble started in 1969, I
:03:53. > :03:58.did not understand why there was trouble. I did not realise, when I
:03:59. > :04:04.was 18 years old, 19 years old, that everybody did not live the way I
:04:05. > :04:10.lived. If there is a stronger word than naive... I was naive. I did not
:04:11. > :04:13.understand Northern Ireland. Once you took the decision to be a
:04:14. > :04:18.partnership and get married and make your life in Northern Ireland, and
:04:19. > :04:24.Pat of course became a successful lawyer, I wonder how aware you
:04:25. > :04:31.became of his family's ardent republicanism, nationalism, if I
:04:32. > :04:34.could put it that way. 's mother and father were not ardent Republicans,
:04:35. > :04:42.not by any means. But all his siblings were. No, not all his
:04:43. > :04:45.siblings. Pat came from a very large family and all of them chose
:04:46. > :04:51.different routes. Some of them, I will admit, did take a Republicans
:04:52. > :05:00.stand and did fight for what they believed they should have. Somewhere
:05:01. > :05:06.in the IRA and you knew that. Yes, some not all by any means. One of
:05:07. > :05:14.his brothers is in a religious order. So, you know, they are very
:05:15. > :05:22.varied family and to say there were ardent Republicans is not a truthful
:05:23. > :05:27.representation of that family. This is sensitive because I'm leading up
:05:28. > :05:33.to 1989 and the most terrible murder of Pat, your husband, but I just
:05:34. > :05:38.wonder in those years before 1989, through the 1980s, when he was
:05:39. > :05:44.working, representing as a solicitor IRA activists including Bobby Sands
:05:45. > :05:47.and other hunger strikers, some of the most senior figures inside the
:05:48. > :05:49.IRA, you must have been aware that there were people in Northern
:05:50. > :05:56.Ireland who believed that your husband, far from just being an
:05:57. > :06:00.independent minded human rights lawyer, was actually part of the
:06:01. > :06:08.IRA. No, I never thought that for one moment. My husband was an
:06:09. > :06:14.officer of the court and when he went to college, he did not study
:06:15. > :06:20.law but in 1969, his family were burned out of their home by
:06:21. > :06:24.Protestants from the Schenkel Road. They were burned out and the family
:06:25. > :06:32.was dispersed. As were many other families in Northern Ireland. And
:06:33. > :06:39.the communities were completely disrupted. I ended up coming
:06:40. > :06:42.back... We had no intention of coming back to Belfast at that
:06:43. > :06:49.particular time but we did and I ended up living in a Catholic,
:06:50. > :06:53.working`class estate, which people had just come to from everywhere
:06:54. > :06:58.because they had been burned out or forced to move out. The housing
:06:59. > :07:04.estates in Northern Ireland at that time were mixed but what happened
:07:05. > :07:09.when the Trouble started in 1969 was some estates, the Protestants put
:07:10. > :07:13.the Catholics out and made it a totally Protestant estate. The
:07:14. > :07:16.Catholics put the Protestants out and it became totally Catholics.
:07:17. > :07:22.There was great movement in the population. I ended up in a
:07:23. > :07:27.Catholics, working`class estate, and you have no idea how much of a
:07:28. > :07:35.culture shock that was for me. I had no idea. Coming from a leafy suburb
:07:36. > :07:40.to a working`class estate was shocking but Pat looked at his
:07:41. > :07:47.community and saw that there was a need for representation. They were
:07:48. > :07:52.lost. They were being stopped and searched, they were being interned,
:07:53. > :08:00.they were not given access to a lawyer for maybe up to 36, 48 hours
:08:01. > :08:05.if they were arrested. And Pat sort that he could do something for his
:08:06. > :08:09.community, so that is why he decided to take the law and become a lawyer
:08:10. > :08:13.because he thought that was the best way forward to help. I suppose the
:08:14. > :08:16.question is whether he crossed a line. For example, Sean
:08:17. > :08:23.O'Callaghan, a highly controversial figure, a former IRA commander who
:08:24. > :08:29.became an informer. He has said that he first met Max one at what he
:08:30. > :08:34.regarded as an exclusively specifically IRA meeting in Donegal,
:08:35. > :08:39.when Pat turned up with Gerry Adams, who at the time was a senior figure
:08:40. > :08:46.in the IRA. And in Sean O'Callaghan's mind, there was no
:08:47. > :08:52.question of Pat's affiliation. My simple answer to that is I think
:08:53. > :08:57.Sean O'Callaghan is a liar. Let's get to that date, the 12th of
:08:58. > :09:04.February, 1989. You were having a lunch with the family at home. Yes.
:09:05. > :09:08.Sunday dinner. There could not have been for one second in the mind the
:09:09. > :09:15.thought that your home would be invaded by gunman but it was and I
:09:16. > :09:22.just wonder now whether the unimaginable horror of that day is
:09:23. > :09:29.in any sense sort of dissipated by time, if the recollection of it has
:09:30. > :09:37.changed after 25 years. The actual horror of the murder? Yes. If you
:09:38. > :09:42.had been sitting in your kitchen having your dinner with your young
:09:43. > :09:50.children and somebody had come in and fired a certain amount of
:09:51. > :09:59.bullets... I mean, there were 14 bullets in Pat. After the RUC
:10:00. > :10:04.forensic team left my kitchen, I find all the bullets they had used,
:10:05. > :10:09.which were everywhere in my kitchen, left, right, centre, everywhere. The
:10:10. > :10:17.horror levels leave `` never leaves you. I don't dwell on it. I don't
:10:18. > :10:22.try to recollect it. But it does not go away. Do you think that was true
:10:23. > :10:27.for the children who were with you at the time but who were very young?
:10:28. > :10:33.Is it as true for them as it is for you, recollect it as an adult? Yes.
:10:34. > :10:38.They were all at a very impressionable age. My youngest son
:10:39. > :10:43.was just short of nine years of age and my daughter was 12 and my oldest
:10:44. > :10:47.son was 17. All of those are very impressionable age is. John was
:10:48. > :10:55.young enough to remember and the other two were teenagers. Yes, of
:10:56. > :11:04.course. And my oldest son actually gathered the children into a corner
:11:05. > :11:10.and probably saved their life. It was an extraordinarily brutal
:11:11. > :11:13.killing and it resonated not just across Northern Ireland or the UK
:11:14. > :11:19.did, over many years, prompt a did, over many years, prompt a
:11:20. > :11:23.series of investigations and reviews of the interest occasions and then
:11:24. > :11:28.enquiries into the reviews of the investigations. And it is true to
:11:29. > :11:34.say that you probably know more about what happened, who did it, how
:11:35. > :11:39.it was plotted, than most people who lost loved ones in Northern
:11:40. > :11:47.Ireland. Would you accept that? Would you feel that is true? Well, I
:11:48. > :11:51.don't know who did it. You know that some key individuals involved in the
:11:52. > :11:58.plot has been convicted. For example, one of those shooters,
:11:59. > :12:06.gunman, was ultimately sentenced to 22 years. Are you talking about Ryan
:12:07. > :12:11.Nelson? I'm not talking about Ryan Nelson. We can get to him in a
:12:12. > :12:18.second. But other individuals, Ken Barrett, was actually convicted of
:12:19. > :12:28.being one of the gunmen. My main thrust in this campaign has never
:12:29. > :12:33.been the gunman. In the 1980s, before that and probably since,
:12:34. > :12:37.gunman has been two a penny in Northern Ireland and it was never
:12:38. > :12:44.the gunmen that I was interested in. I wanted to know who instructed
:12:45. > :12:49.them. I wanted to know how far off the chain of command this all went.
:12:50. > :12:53.The gunman didn't think this up for themselves. I don't give them that
:12:54. > :12:59.much intelligence. But you mentioned the name Brian Nelson. He has been
:13:00. > :13:04.connected with this case. He, we now know, was an agent working with one
:13:05. > :13:11.of the Army's special... The Force research intelligence service. He
:13:12. > :13:17.has been named. Others, for example, the man working with the
:13:18. > :13:20.RUC special Branch as an agent, who provided the weapon, he has been
:13:21. > :13:27.named as well. I just come back to this point that you do, after so
:13:28. > :13:32.many years and so much pain that you have suffered, you do have, do you
:13:33. > :13:37.not, a strong sense of the collusion with the security services, the way
:13:38. > :13:42.in which the paramilitaries some elements within the British state
:13:43. > :13:47.security were working together? Yes. Some being the world. I only have
:13:48. > :13:54.some notion of it. There has never been a proper inquiry where
:13:55. > :13:59.witnesses can be cross`examined, and similar statements can be verified
:14:00. > :14:07.by cross`examination. None of that has ever happened. David Cameron,
:14:08. > :14:12.back in 2011, invited you to Downing Street because he believed in
:14:13. > :14:17.setting up one further review led by leading barrister Sir Desmond De
:14:18. > :14:25.Silva. He believed he was doing what you wanted, going that extra mile.
:14:26. > :14:29.No he didn't. No, he didn't. If his aides had talked to him properly, he
:14:30. > :14:33.would have been under no illusion that another review was what the
:14:34. > :14:36.family wanted. We were told before we went to Downing Street that we
:14:37. > :14:40.would be happy with what we heard. And we were certainly not happy with
:14:41. > :14:46.what we heard. We had been having meetings for up to one year before
:14:47. > :14:54.that meeting in Downing Street. My legal team and the legal teams on
:14:55. > :15:01.the Crown side. And it was discussions about the type of
:15:02. > :15:07.inquiry and we have had a particular difficulty with the enquiries act
:15:08. > :15:13.because one of the clauses in that legislation states that a relevant
:15:14. > :15:18.government minister may override the tribunal with a restriction notice,
:15:19. > :15:26.so the power and the independence of the tribunal is not total and we
:15:27. > :15:31.felt that did not give us a very fair playing field. Now, at one
:15:32. > :15:45.stage during the discussions, we were offered a protocol, which was
:15:46. > :15:48.used in an inquiry into the Baha Moussa case. In Iraq. In the
:15:49. > :15:54.allegations of torture by British services. Yes. In that protocol,
:15:55. > :15:59.they were willing to let the tribunal be totally independent and
:16:00. > :16:04.that was put on the table and we said if that is what you are going
:16:05. > :16:07.to have is the way you operate, we will go with the inquiry, let's
:16:08. > :16:12.start tomorrow. That was the last meeting we had. So, you can
:16:13. > :16:15.understand that when we went to Downing Street and the Prime
:16:16. > :16:20.Minister said we will not having an inquiry and we would just going to
:16:21. > :16:24.review the papers, where Sir Desmond De Silva did not have the power to
:16:25. > :16:28.compel anybody to speak to him, he could not cross`examine anybody...
:16:29. > :16:32.The papers had been looked at before. It was a complete and utter
:16:33. > :16:43.waste of time and money. You walked out. I didn't walk out. What I am
:16:44. > :16:50.getting too is this, Desmond DeSilva went ahead with this review and he
:16:51. > :16:53.came out I will quote some from it, he concluded that state agents
:16:54. > :16:57.played a key role in the murder of your husband. He said authorities
:16:58. > :17:02.could have invented it, but didn't and concluded that it would not have
:17:03. > :17:08.happened without state involvement. But, he said, in the end he could
:17:09. > :17:15.not say that the killing of Pat Finucane was linked to an
:17:16. > :17:20.overarching state conspiracy. Isn't that the real problem you have? That
:17:21. > :17:23.you, with the greatest of respect, are convinced there was a
:17:24. > :17:27.overarching state conspiracy and you don't want to hear any expert who
:17:28. > :17:32.has reviewed the evidence and concluded otherwise. He hasn't
:17:33. > :17:36.review the evidence thoroughly. He hasn't had the power. He didn't
:17:37. > :17:42.speak to many people. He just read something on paper. Now, when Judge
:17:43. > :17:45.Cory did exactly the same thing, he read statement a and statement be
:17:46. > :17:50.and that, because he couldn't go any further than that, he was only
:17:51. > :17:57.designated to review and that he couldn't make a final decision
:17:58. > :18:03.because they were questions to ask, discrepancies and other such things
:18:04. > :18:12.``statement A and statement B. How can Desmond DeSilva make such a
:18:13. > :18:17.decision doing the same thing? I'm not convinced that this is the way
:18:18. > :18:20.it must be. I don't want an enquiry and if it doesn't come out the way I
:18:21. > :18:27.think it should, then I'll be unhappy. I just want a fair crack of
:18:28. > :18:32.the whip. I want my site to put forward, the other side, and an
:18:33. > :18:39.independent tribunal to reach a conclusion `` side. I want it to be
:18:40. > :18:45.transparent. This case is not about the murder of Pat Finucane any
:18:46. > :18:48.longer. This has more impact to Northern Ireland than you could
:18:49. > :18:57.possibly match in. It affects so many people. `` imagine. People
:18:58. > :18:59.deserve to find out the truth clearly and transparently and not
:19:00. > :19:06.for something to go on behind closed doors and then be told that that is
:19:07. > :19:11.the way it was. Nobody at this stage believes that because it has been
:19:12. > :19:16.delayed and delayed and delayed and people now say, well, what are you
:19:17. > :19:20.hiding? Why don't they just do it? There is a wide ranging discussion
:19:21. > :19:23.in Northern Ireland now about the merits of continuing the quest for
:19:24. > :19:29.justice, not just in your case, but other cases that come from that
:19:30. > :19:34.troubled period, weighed against the need to look for the future, not the
:19:35. > :19:38.past. The need to move on in Northern Ireland. Would you accept
:19:39. > :19:54.at some point you would have two look forward and not back? You will
:19:55. > :20:01.have to move on. There is an analogy I use which sums up well, if you
:20:02. > :20:07.have a wound of any sort, you treat it in a certain way to make it heal.
:20:08. > :20:11.Deep wounds, which this has turned out to be, because it was about
:20:12. > :20:17.collusion which affected the whole of Northern Ireland, a deep wound
:20:18. > :20:24.cannot be stitched over and just left, because it won't heal, it will
:20:25. > :20:27.fester and eventually it will burst. That is what is happening in
:20:28. > :20:32.Northern Ireland at the minute, because not only the case of Pat
:20:33. > :20:36.Finucane and collusion hasn't been dealt with, but another of other
:20:37. > :20:39.things haven't been dealt with. The trouble in Northern Ireland is
:20:40. > :20:42.escalating all the time. So, where does that leave you when you hear
:20:43. > :20:51.what has happened for example to more than 180 Republicans suspected
:20:52. > :20:55.of involvement in IRA activities, some including murder and other
:20:56. > :20:57.alleged offences, who have, in effect, been offered amnesty?
:20:58. > :21:04.Letters from the British government have been received, saying they face
:21:05. > :21:12.no prosecution and have been now known as on the runs. It is vital it
:21:13. > :21:15.is that they do not face prosecution as part of the peace process. How
:21:16. > :21:20.would you feel if you were the relative of someone who lost their
:21:21. > :21:25.life as the result of the actions of these on the runs? I can't speak for
:21:26. > :21:30.anybody apart from myself. I understand the pain that other
:21:31. > :21:34.people have. I have pain myself. Our family have never sought
:21:35. > :21:38.prosecutions against the people that murdered pat. That has never been
:21:39. > :21:45.our primary aim. Our primary aim was to find out the truth `` Pat. To
:21:46. > :21:51.find justice, and have it exposed so that everyone understood what was
:21:52. > :21:56.going on. That has been our primary aim. I can't say to someone else who
:21:57. > :22:01.lost a husband or a brother or a son or some relative, I can't say that's
:22:02. > :22:06.what you should do. That would be very arrogant of me to say that. You
:22:07. > :22:08.don't accept the notion that at some point amnesty becomes a very
:22:09. > :22:15.important concept in Northern Ireland. The former Northern Ireland
:22:16. > :22:20.Secretary of State, Peter Hain, said that we need to look to the future
:22:21. > :22:22.and if you are going to do that, addressed the issue of amnesties and
:22:23. > :22:27.apply it evenhandedly across the board. That means even for British
:22:28. > :22:33.security forces who face their own questions. To go that, if you are
:22:34. > :22:38.healing something, you know, you have to look at what you are
:22:39. > :22:41.healing. And, everything needs to be healed in a different fashion. I
:22:42. > :22:49.think that's what makes Northern Ireland so difficult to heal. It
:22:50. > :22:54.was, there is so much to cover. From South Africa, we have inherited this
:22:55. > :22:59.phrase that troops off our tongues, but, maybe at some point, particular
:23:00. > :23:08.after a generation, reconciliation becomes more important than pursuing
:23:09. > :23:12.the truth to the very end. Different people in Northern Ireland are at
:23:13. > :23:19.different stages of the journey. That is why it is very hard to reach
:23:20. > :23:26.a consensus on how we should all move forward together. Let me end by
:23:27. > :23:33.bringing us from the very beginning, when we talked about the way your
:23:34. > :23:37.relationship develop to now, you and he crossed a divide to make your
:23:38. > :23:41.relationship and your marriage and your children together. When you
:23:42. > :23:44.look at your children's lives and the communities in Northern Ireland
:23:45. > :23:54.today, do you think things are very different? Do you think sectarianism
:23:55. > :24:01.in Northern Ireland is on the wane? I don't think I would go as far as
:24:02. > :24:06.to say it is on the wane. Sectarian divides are still very prominent in
:24:07. > :24:11.Northern Ireland. There is a lock of community work going on. There is a
:24:12. > :24:19.lot of cross community stuff. But, I think it is still a big issue.
:24:20. > :24:24.Geraldine Finucane, thanks in much for being on HARDtalk. `` thanks
:24:25. > :24:50.very much. Hello. Many of us have seen lovely
:24:51. > :24:56.spring sunshine in the last few days, but it has been rather chilly
:24:57. > :24:57.first thing. A reminder that it is