Madam, - It is not correct, as Dr Seán Marlow states (December 16th), that the British minister Douglas Hogg made "unsubstantiated allegations against the human rights solicitor Pat Finucane" in the House of Commons weeks before his assassination. The record shows that Mr Hogg named neither Mr Finucane nor any other solicitor.
In resisting an amendment to the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 1989, he said he had received advice that "some solicitors were unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA".
He made it clear that a solicitor was not to be regarded as such just because he represented IRA suspects.
This attempt to demonise Douglas Hogg is unjust. He is a singularly independent and fair-minded Conservative with a good record on civil rights; and, incidentally, he is one of only two members of his party (the late Alan Clark was the other) who advocated that Sinn Féin MPs should be allowed to take their seats in the House of Commons without having to swear an oath of allegiance to the British monarch. - Yours, etc,
CHARLES LYSAGHT, Strand Road, Dublin 4.