The Government has repeated its call for a full independent inquiry into the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern had his first meeting with the widow and son of the murdered solicitor at Government Buildings in Dublin yesterday.
He said he would continue the government's campaign to have an independent inquiry into the murder of the solicitor in 1989 by the Ulster Defence Association.
"We will endeavour to articulate to the British government the need to have as full an inquiry as possible, not moving one iota in relation to our principled stand for a full independent inquiry," he said.
He spoke with Geraldine Finucane; her solicitor, Peter Madden; and her son, John, for more than an hour.
The family and Mr Justice Peter Cory, the retired Canadian supreme court judge who recommended holding an inquiry into the murder, have all rejected the terms proposed by the British government under the Inquiries Act 2005.
"It has been a difficult path to where we are today and I think the family are under no illusions that it's going to continue to be difficult, given the fact that the legislation has been passed in the British parliament changing the 1921 legislation," said Mr Ahern.
He said the government had made it clear time and time again that it was not satisfied with the legislation that had replaced the 1921 Tribunal of Inquiry Act.
"The difficulty is that the control of the inquiry does not lie with the panel of judges. The control lies with the government and, in this case, it is the government that are under scrutiny and therefore that removes the independence of the tribunal," said Geraldine Finucane.
Mrs Finucane said a possible challenge to the British government approach in the European Court of Human Rights had not been ruled out.
The British government has so far resisted pressure to have a completely public inquiry, raising questions over its willingness to explore whether there was official British collusion with loyalists in Mr Finucane's murder.
The Finucane family has written to senior British judges to ask them not to work with any inquiry in the proposed format.