The Attorney General, Mr Rory Brady, has told an audience of American lawyers that it would be "inconceivable" if the British government did not hold a judiciary inquiry into the death of solicitor Pat Finucane and said that were "well-based suspicions" that agents of the British state were involved in the killing.
Mr Brady told the Washington DC Bar Association that time would tell if Mr Finucane's killing would lead to a public judicial inquiry but that is would be "inconceivable" that a democratic government would not move to hold such an inquiry.
He said that, two years ago, the distinguished Canadian judge, Justice Cory, had been invited by the British and Irish governments to examine several murder cases, including that of Pat Finucane.
"[The examination] could include a recommendation in relation to a public judicial inquiry. Time will tell what his recommendation is in this regard.
"It seems to me, however, that it would be inconceivable that a democratic government would not - in the circumstances of Pat Finucane's murder - move to institute a public judicial inquiry," he said. Mr Brady prefaced his comments by saying that lawyers see respect for the rule of law as being at the heart of the democratic system.
"An assault on the judiciary or on the practising Bar is an assault on the rule of law," he said.
Mr Brady paid tribute to Pat Finucane for representing both nationalist and loyalist prisoners before he was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989.
"Like any lawyer, he represented his client regardless of their political views or creeds. There is well-based suspicion of involvement of agents of the state in this murder," Mr Brady said. In a speech examining new areas of law in Ireland, Mr Brady said that areas of practice have grown dramatically and this was most visible in the development of law dealing with asylum-seekers. "For a country that had as one of its biggest exports - its people - it is amazing that, at the commencement of the new millennium, one of the big issues facing our society is the challenge of immigration whether legal or illegal," he said.
"Our success as an economy has had, as a by-product, the creation of new areas of law. Indeed, in this regard, when we look to the United States and see the way in which its laws have developed, it is a most instructive exercise for the modern and prosperous Ireland of today," he said.