Ahern: McCabe killers 'not in control of prison'
The IRA killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe are not in control of their prison and will serve out their full sentences, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said today.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA) today called on Justice Minister Michael McDowell to remove the special privileges enjoyed by the four IRA men who gunned down the officer in a botched post office raid in Co Limerick in 1996.
Kevin Walsh, Pearse McAuley, Jeremiah Sheehy and Michael O’Neill are housed in fully-furnished bungalows rather than cells in Castlerea open prison in Co Roscommon and use taxis to ferry takeaway meals from nearby restaurants.
The men were sentenced in 1999 for between 11 and 14 years for manslaughter.
Mr Ahern told the Dáil today that Castlerea was an open prison but its conditions could not be described as luxurious.
He also said that the GRA “never once raised” the issues of special prison privileges “on all the occasions” when they met him.
“The Governor is totally in charge. It’s entirely inaccurate to describe these prisoners as being in control of the prison,” he added.
“The fact of the matter is that the murderers of Det Garda McCabe are in prison and will remain there for the duration of their sentences.
“To the best of my knowledge, there are no proposals to change that,” he said.
GRA president Dermot O’Donnell today demanded at his annual conference in Co Kerry that the IRA killers should serve the remainder of their sentences in cells rather than bungalows.
A recent report by the Inspector of Prisons ruled that the conditions were completely inappropriate for the killers of a serving garda.
Raising the matter in the Dáil today, opposition leader Enda Kenny said: “These persons are effectively giving the two fingers to the McCabe family, to the Irish Government and to the Irish people.”
He claimed that the McCabe killers wouldn’t allow other prisoners to share their Grove area of bungalows unless they were members of the IRA.
But Mr Ahern replied: “We have moved to a position where the McCabe killers are not being released.”
The Government had planned to release the IRA killers as part of deal with Sinn Féin but this was later abandoned after the collapse of power-sharing talks last December.
