The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has today denied that any deal was made last October regarding the early release of the killers of Detective Jerry McCabe.
It was reported that the four men convicted of his murder were to be released as part of a deal designed to restore Northern Ireland's power-sharing assembly, sparking fury from the garda representative bodies.
However, speaking in Dublin this morning, Mr Ahern did not rule out the possibility of such a deal being made at some point in the future if full and verifiable decommissioning had been achieved by the paramilitaries.