The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, will consider a request for a public inquiry into the unsolved murders of two women in Grangegorman in March 1997, his spokeswoman said last night.
She confirmed that the Minister had received the request for the inquiry from Mr Michael Finucane, solicitor for Ms Stella Nolan, a sister of Ms Sylvia Shiels.
Ms Shiels and Ms Mary Callinan were stabbed to death in their sheltered housing accommodation. Two separate confessions were made to the murders but no one was ever successfully prosecuted.
Mr McDowell was in Strasbourg yesterday and did not have an opportunity to study the correspondence from Mr Finucane, his spokeswoman said, but he would be considering it in due course.
If he refused to establish an inquiry, Mr Finucane said Ms Nolan would take the case to the courts. She would ask the High Court to compel the Government to hold an inquiry, on the grounds that the State had failed to comply with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
