I reiterate that we have gone through a long process of trying to get additional information from various sources within the British establishment and that has been completed. Mr. Justice Barron will make his views known on whether that was entirely satisfactory but I will not re-open that issue. We went through a long period of trying to get the information and set up meetings with him between various individuals. His team held those meetings and we will have to wait to see what Mr. Justice Barron states about it.
On the inquest, I have spent a great deal of time on all these cases over the years, including all the cases that we have referred to Judge Cory's inquiry. There are different views about what happened and why it happened but the House should understand the circumstances. In the Troubles of Northern Ireland at that stage atrocities were being committed practically on a daily basis. There was plenty of speculation about collusion at the time of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, which I remember well. It was strongly believed at the time that there was collusion but the question was trying to prove it. These issues were dealt with at a remove and I have spent long hours talking to the families over many years. However, the reality is the Barron inquiry has been our first real attempt to find and go through all the information to see where we get.
With regard to the Garda investigation, about which Deputy Rabbitte asked me earlier, I informed the families five or six years ago of my information about that. I found it extraordinary that the Garda investigation into the biggest atrocity in the South during the entire period of the troubles was opened and closed within a year. The position with the inquests was similar. They opened on 27 May 1974 and the death certificates were issued, and they were not held again. That is extraordinary. We must look at what was in the minds of people at the time, who were concerned with other issues. The findings of the Garda investigation have been available to Mr. Justice Barron. We must await the report of the Barron tribunal and see where we can go from there. There is no point in my trying to second guess that report.
When delegations from Northern Ireland ask me to look at individual cases I am advised that if we were to open all those cases, involving various groups and including the security elements, we would never achieve trust and confidence. I have views on that question which I may express when the Barron and Cory inquiries have been completed. I am frequently asked, by all sides, not to go down the road of inquiry. They may not ask publicly but they certainly do so privately. We must try to get to the end of the Barron and Cory inquiries. If we were to investigate every case and establish public inquiries it would create much difficulty, perhaps not now but for the next 20 or 30 years.
We are committed to completing the Barron inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and related cases and the Cory inquiry into the cases which were agreed in Weston Park, and we should complete those. I hope that in some of those cases there will be sufficient evidence and new information to justify full inquiries. I have always felt particularly strongly about the Pat Finucane case and I believe there is a large amount of evidence to justify an inquiry into it. However, that evidence must stand up and when Mr. Justice Cory reports in the autumn we will see that evidence.
The Garda investigation opened in 1974 and closed n 1975, and that sounds extraordinary now. The coroner issued death certificates in 1974 and then, effectively, the case was closed. In recent years I have asked myself why those events were not investigated. Mr. Justice Barron will review those records. I can only imagine that so many other atrocities were happening at the time that it was thought that the investigation could not be brought further. That seems strange when one looks back at what happened in 1975 and 1976 but those are the decisions that were made. The investigations were not subsequently reopened and successive Governments did not so request until we began to look at the question again in 1998 after the Good Friday Agreement.
Let us wait for the findings of Mr. Justice Barron's inquiry and examine them in this House. Let us also look at Mr. Justice Cory's report when it is made.