Six more long-serving republican paramilitary prisoners are to be given early release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. They include the Provisional IRA group known as the Balcombe Street Four. Most of the six prisoners have been on Easter leave from Portlaoise Prison. On their return next week they will be told they are free to go. Sinn Féin has described the move as a welcome development.
All were flown to Dublin from Britain last year, after their transfers had been agreed by the Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue, and the British Home Secretary, Jack Straw. They include the Provisional IRA group known as the Balcombe Street Four: Harry Duggan from Clare; Martin O’Connell, also from Clare; Hugh Doherty from Donegal, brother of Sinn Féin vice-president, Pat Doherty; and a Limerick man, Eddie Butler.
They were arrested after a 5-day siege in Balcombe Street in London in 1975, during which they held a couple hostage. They received multiple life sentences for their part in the two-year bombing campaign in Britain. At the time of their transfer they had served 21 years of their sentences and had been in custody for 24 years in total. Following their transfer to Portlaoise, the four were given temporary release to attend the Sinn Féin Árd Fheis, where they spoke in favour of the Good Friday Agreement.
Liam Quinn, an Irish American who was transferred to Dublin at the same time as the Balcombe Street Four is also being released. He was detained in the US in 1981, extradited to Britain, and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for the murder of a British policeman. The sixth prisoner is being released from Wheatfield Prison in Dublin. John Kinsella from Ballyfermot was transferred from Britain last December. He had been sentenced to 16 years in prison in 1993 in connection with a bomb attack on Warrington Gasworks.
The move was approved by the Minister for Justice, John O'Donoghue, after the cases had been considered by the Release of Prisoners Commission. The Department of Justice has described the decision to release these prisoners as a further confidence building step in the peace process. It comes at a crucial time in that process, with the decommissioning issue still unresolved and the Hillsborough talks due to resume next Tuesday.
The Police Federation of England and Wales has protested at the early release of Liam Quinn. Fred Broughton, the chairman of the Police Federation, said life imprisonment should mean life for anyone convicted of killing a police officer. Anything else was outrageous and showed how cheap life was.
