IRA victim’s daughter: ‘Pain of the Finucane family is no different to our own – why do we not get the same consideration?’

Mary McCurrie made the comments to the News Letter after Labour’s Northern Ireland spokeswoman declared this week that nothing short of a public inquiry into the 1989 shooting of Mr Finucane is neededto “establish the full truth” around his death.

Although Louise Haigh (the 33-year-old Sheffield MP responsible for Labour’s stance on NI) added that she was just re-stating existing party policy about an inquiry, her timing will add pressure on the government which is expected to rule within weeks whether to launch a full-scale inquiry.

Ms Haigh had said of the killing: “That this crime could happen at all in our country is shocking; that it has never been investigated to a lawful standard is unjustifiable.”

Mr Finucane was a solicitor (often described as a “human rights lawyer” by republicans).

Three of his brothers – John, Dermot and Seamus – were connected with republican activities (the first was an IRA man killed in a car crash, the second was one of the Maze 1983 escapees, and the third was a former prisoner who was arrested alongside Bobby Sands after an IRA bombing and gunfight).

Pat Finucane acted as legal representative for high-profile republicans including Sands.

There have already been three different reports which looked in detail at the events surrounding Mr Finucane’s death, carried out by senior figures in the justice system (the Stevens III report of 2003, the Cory report of 2004, and the de Silva report of 2012), all citing evidence of state/loyalist collusion.

But if the government decides to convene a public inquiry (akin to the Bloody Sunday inquiry, for instance) it is expected the hearings would be public and that its chair would be able to force people to attend and give evidence.

Mary McCurrie’s father James, a married civilian father-of-four (whose wife was expecting a fifth child), was shot dead by an IRA gunman on June 27, 1970, during a explosion of violence around St Matthew’s chapel, east Belfast.

Another Protestant civilian, Robert Neill, also died.

Mary said: “My father was an ordinary man who worked hard for his family and he was taken from us in an instant – shot down by cowards.

“No-one seems to worry that my mother was left without a husband, me (my siblings and I) without a dad, and our lives changed forever.

“I hear of calls for an inquiry into the death of Mr Finucane. Our pain is no different to that of the Finucane family.

“Why is there not an inquiry for my father? Why do the other innocent victims of violence not deserve the same consideration?”

She pointed to the fact that the long-awaited pension scheme for Troubles victims is still not off the ground, adding: “And yet there seems to be the money for endless legal challenges in other cases.

“It seems to me that we are once again being forgotten – swept under the carpet if you like.”