Widow's 'frustration' at Pat Finucane public inquiry delay

The widow of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane has said her family is frustrated by a delay in the start of a public inquiry ordered by the UK Government in 2024.

Geraldine Finucane believes the inquiry is being held up over the setting of its terms of reference, which will determine precisely what the inquiry will investigate.

Her 39-year-old husband was shot dead at his home in north Belfast by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in 1989.

A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said: "The government is working expeditiously to finalise the terms of reference with the independent inquiry chair so the inquiry is able to begin its work without undue delay."

Evidence of state collusion has been found, leading the government to agree to establish an independent public inquiry 17 months ago.

An inquiry chairman was appointed last June, but it has yet to begin hearings.

In a statement on the 37th anniversary of the murder, Finucane expressed "growing frustration at the continuing delay".

She added: "In November, our family provided our observations on the draft terms of reference in good faith.

"Three months on, those terms of reference have still not been published."

She pointed out the inquiry cannot begin its work until the terms are set.

"This delay is preventing progress and engagement in a case where delay has already caused profound harm over almost four decades.

"We want to be clear: our family wants this inquiry to commence.

"We want to engage with it and work constructively with it.

"We are simply asking that the terms of reference be published so that this long-overdue inquiry can finally begin."

Pat Finucane's son, John Finucane, who is the Sinn Féin MP for North Belfast, said his mother's statement was important, because "until terms of reference are published the inquiry doesn't exist legally in any meaningful way".

"The chair can't begin work, we as a family can't engage, nothing at all moves forward, so this is much more than a technical delay, it's a delay that brings the entire process to a standstill," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme.

"I think what we have said today on an anniversary when we should be marking progress, is effectively bringing to everybody's attention that no work can take place whatsoever because the government have yet to publish terms of reference."

Finucane said that anniversaries are "difficult" and that this one "should have marked a turning point with an inquiry finally beginning work, but instead it is another reminder that we are still waiting at the very first step despite commitments nearly 18 months ago".

"When you talk about a murder of my father, of my mum's husband, this isn't businesslike, this isn't just paperwork, for my mum particularly this is her life, it is her loss, it is our loss and after nearly four decades being asked to wait again when the waiting is avoidable, that's not easy, it takes a toll," he added.

Pat Finucane was a high-profile solicitor who lived and worked in Belfast.

In his role as a defence solicitor, he had represented both loyalists and republicans, including prominent members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In February 1989 he was shot 14 times by two gunmen.

The Finucane family were eating a Sunday meal at their kitchen table when loyalist paramilitaries used a sledgehammer to break into their house.

His wife, Geraldine, was also wounded.

One of his sons is the Sinn Féin MP John Finucane.

The Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), a cover name for the UDA, later admitted carrying out the murder.

At an inquest into his death, police refuted claims that Pat Finucane was in the IRA.

In 2012, Sir Desmond de Silva's report into the murder found there was agent involvement and that police took no action on threat intelligence regarding Pat Finucane.