This week's revelations about Pat Finucane's murder have again highlighted the North's "dirty war" years, Dan Keenan reports
Martin McGuinness was right when he said the implications of the Finucane affair are "massive". It is potentially bigger than Bloody Sunday, he added - an extraordinary remark for a Derryman - but, again, his perception could be closer to the truth than many yet realise.
The shots that killed Pat Finucane as he sat at Sunday dinner with his family got rid of a lawyer held in suspicion by the British establishment. But they also stoked a controversy that may still, in the words of his son Michael yesterday, "rock the foundations of the state". One thing is certain, the police, military and intelligence systems will not remain unaltered after this.
Thirteen years after his murder, Pat Finucane's very name evokes the dirty war that cost him his life and the affair brings in to sharper relief the shadowy figures that circulate in the murky, covert world of intelligence, spies and counter-terrorism and the bendable rules that govern them. The Finucane affair, with all its Kennedy-esque twists, does not stand alone. It is viewed alongside other cases, ranging from the spate of loyalist murders in the late 80s and early 90s, to the Omagh bombing in 1998, the Castlereagh break-in last March and claims concerning undercover operations and spies.
Central to all of these is the roles played by the various bodies involved in intelligence operations and the mechanisms, if any, which were used to make them politically accountable.
Pat Finucane's son, Michael, harbours few doubts about where the buck stops in relation to his father's murder. It rests on the Cabinet table in Downing Street. He believes that nothing in the web of associations, links and relationships between army intelligence, RUC Special Branch and loyalist killers is accidental and that democratic accountability centres on the prime minister.
There was nothing accidental either in the words of former junior officer Douglas Hogg who told the Commons in January 1898: "I have to state as a fact, but with great regret, that there are in Northern Ireland a number of solicitors who are unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA." Three weeks afterwards Pat Finucane was shot dead.
Michael Finucane believes Mr Hogg spoke with the weight of security briefings behind him and the authority of a government minister. His family wants a public inquiry, and the clamour has grown to include a range of human rights organisations, Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Irish Government.
What such an inquiry could uncover can only form speculation. What it could add to that soon to be reported by the Stevens inquiry is also guesswork.
Key questions relate to the British army's intelligence division, the Force Research Unit (FRU), and RUC Special Branch. Did the FRU recruit agents, such as Brian Nelson, to infiltrate loyalist paramilitaries and allegedly redirect UDA killers away from "sectarian" killing towards more "legitimate" targets?
Did Special Branch run double agents, such as William Stobie, a UDA quartermaster, and did it keep to itself information about Finucane's murder and protect its man? Did the FRU and Special Branch, both of which were aware of efforts to kill Pat Finucane, not inform him of the threats to his life, and did either of them facilitate the killing in February 1989?
And did Special Branch, as a former CID officer Johnston (Johnty) Brown claims, block prosecution efforts against the Finucane gunman, recruiting him as an informer instead?
Evidence is accumulating against the intelligence bodies and further findings made against them by the likes of Stevens, the Police Ombudsman, international lawyers' groups and human-rights bodies advance the case for restructuring undercover operations.
Demands for sweeping reform are spurred by evidence that spy agencies have become obsessed with gathering intelligence for its own sake and have failed to involve other police and army branches in counter-terrorist measures. The Omagh bombing and the killing of 76-year-old Roseanne Mallon in 1994 in particular raise issues concerning Special Branch reluctance to pass on information. As a result, the demand for a revamped intelligence operation has grown.
Anti-terrorist intelligence activity is currently shared by Special Branch, the British army and the secret service, MI5. But in any shake-up, it seems the real losers will be the army, leaving the field to the fledgling Police Service of Northern Ireland and MI5.
A private briefing given by the secret service to the Policing Board last week indicated MI5 did not want the Northern Ireland brief.
The Patten report on the future of policing advanced the call for Special Branch - for too long a "force within a force" - to be downsized from about 800 officers and made an integral, open and transparent element alongside Crime Branch or CID.
The Policing Board is keen for this to happen, as is the policing Oversight Commissioner, Prof Tom Constantine. As the man charged with reporting on progress, or the lack of it, on implementation of Patten's proposals, Prof Constantine, one of the foremost US experts in his field, has criticised the speed of reform.
Sinn Féin wants a tougher line on policing and has not taken up its seats on the Policing Board. According to Gerry Kelly, "Special Branch are the people who developed the RUC into a force whose prime motivation was the maintenance of the Northern statelet as a cold house for Catholics in general and republicans in particular. They are still there."
And with Sir John Chilcott, staff counsellor for the British Security and Intelligence Services, investigating the Castlereagh robbery with a view to recommending reform of the intelligence machine in the North, it is clear that Special Branch primacy in this field is far from guaranteed.
It presents unusual questions for the political parties. Is the SDLP happy to push the case for Special Branch after years of criticism? Are the unionists happy to see intelligence authority transferred to MI5 after the Northern Secretary has said he envisages a transfer of justice powers to Stormont during the lifetime of the next Assembly? Above all, is Sinn Féin guaranteeing the loss of all forms of local control of intelligence by shouting too loud about the failings of Special Branch and backing the case for MI5 as it does so? Surely the most bitter of ironies.
The Stevens report will make fascinating reading. No less interesting will be the course adopted by one of the report's authors, Mr Hugh Orde. When he becomes Chief Constable of the PSNI his initial decisions will prove pivotal, not just in the case of Pat Finucane but in the entire direction of policing in Northern Ireland.