Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte has said British plans for a "secret" inquiry into the UDA murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane must be opposed.
Mr Rabbitte said the hostile reaction from nationalists, human rights bodies and the Finucane family was "understandable and entirely legitimate".
The British government announced yesterday an inquiry into the 1989 murder and issues of collusion between the RUC, British army and loyalist paramilitaries.
But the Northern Secretary said new legislation would be enacted enabling substantial sections of the inquiry to be held in private. Furthermore, Mr Murphy did not specify that an inquiry would be headed by a High Court judge or that it would be in public.
Mr Michael Finucane, son of the murdered solicitor, said the plan sounded to him "more like a government investigation" than the independent, international judicial inquiry his family has sought for the past 15 years.
In a statement issued today, Mr Rabbitte said: "I regret yesterday's announcement by the British government that its long-delayed inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane and related issues of collusion between the RUC, British army and loyalist paramilitaries may be neither judicial nor public."