'Why Pat Finucane and not my father?' IRA victims react to fresh investigation into 1989 solicitor murder

A recurring theme was why this single murder out of the 3,600-plus murders of the Troubles deserves such scrutiny.

The lawyer was shot by UDA gunmen in front of his family in Belfast in 1989.

A police investigation led to the conviction of loyalist Ken Barrett in 2004.

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

​Alan Irwin, who lost both his uncle and his father to separate IRA gun attacks, said he felt "sick to my stomach" at the news of the new Finucane inquiry, adding: "Here we go again."

No-one was ever even arrested over the murder of his father Thomas, and he believes the same is true for the murder of his uncle Fred too.

The 59-year-old Church of Ireland minister said: "There's a kind of despondency certainly from my perspective.

"If there was malpractice and something has happened, it all needs investigated.

"But why not the same investigation into my father's murder, or my uncle's murder, or any other single atrocity carried out by the PIRA – or loyalists for that matter?

"What's different about him? Yes, it was a brutal murder. But there's been other murders carried out in front of families and loved ones and there's been no public inquiries."

Wendy Gibson lost her husband Ned in an IRA ambush in east Tyrone in 1988.

He was aged 22 and was a part-time UDR soldier, who'd only been in the regiment for eight weeks. A binman, he was shot while doing his rounds.

No-one was arrested, let alone convicted.

On the fact there's to be a new inquiry into the Finucane murder, she said: "The ordinary person on the street, we couldn't afford to keep asking for inquiries.

"The ordinary 9-to-5 person can't afford to keep pushing at the law to inquire into my husband's death or anybody else's."

Her and Ned's daughter Marlene, now aged 39, told the News Letter: "If people don't get justice at the time, they're not likely to get justice 30, 40, 50 even maybe 60 years later. It's not going to happen.

"So why are they dragging it all up again? Just because he was a high-profile solicitor for IRA terrorists?

"I don't see why they're ploughing thousands and thousands of pounds into yet another public inquiry when they already know the circumstances surrounding his death.

"Somebody has admitted killing him. So what more do they need? What more are they looking from this?"

Stephen Gault, 54, is a survivor of the IRA's Enniskillen bomb which killed 12 people, including his father Samuel.

No-one was ever convicted over the blast.

"Here we are again," he said of the Finucane inquiry, noting that whilst that killing has been laid at the door of the state, "victims of terrorism are being forgotten about".

"In the likes of Enniskillen, we've never had an investigation, and yet the Finucanes have had three, they don't like what they hear, then they go for another one, then another one, then another one.

"It just seems to me that they'll just keep going, investigating until they come up with different answers that'll satisfy the families…

"We thought under this new government, under Labour, there might be some sort of daylight for victims of republicans. But obviously it's the same old, same old. They just keep investigating 'cause they're trying to prove collusion."