Report on Prisoners Abroad -- Stormont Watch

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Date Posted: Thu, Aug 16 2007, 13:10:46 PDT
Author: CR Vets Press Release
Subject: Report on Prisoners Abroad

Rights vets welcome prison report

The Derry-based October 5th Association, a global network of 1968 civil rights veterans and supporters, this week welcomed moves in Dublin to enhance the welfare of all Irish prisoners abroad. The on-line network has been active on several fronts for more than a decade, and has placed a particular focus on prison issues.

This veterans� group in February 2003, mid-way though an extensive lobbying campaign held a pivotal press conference at the AOH hall in Derry, which contributed to the publication of the Steel Report in September of that year. The report, although never fully implemented, resulted in the long-awaited segregation of loyalist and republican/Catholic prisoners.

The latter, then a small minority within HMP Maghaberry, had previously been subjected to physical attacks, several considered life-threatening. The lobbying campaign and conference, organised jointly with the relatives of prisoners, was actively supported by local prisoner-welfare groups, as well as others in the USA and Britain in addition to prominent local clergy, SDLP politicians including Mr. John Hume and Mr. Mark Durkan, prison chaplains, and the late Monsignor Denis Faul.

Mr. Fionnbarra O�Dochartaigh, a co-founder of the civil rights movement in 1967 in Belfast, who chaired the 2003 conference, has written to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern TD, after he announced a grant of 218,000 Euro to the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO). He is urging the minister to effect the immediate repatriation of Noel Maguire, the last of the republican prisoners being held in an English jail. In recent months Mr. Maguire was hospitalised after being subjected to a knife attack, and because of continuing threats O�Dochartaigh states that the life of this Co. Fermanagh man remains �on the line� on a daily basis.

O�Dochartaigh expressed regrets that this is the first time the Irish government has commissioned a report into the plight of Irish citizens in prisons abroad. According to the ICPO, based at Maynooth and London, there are at least 800 Irish people incarcerated abroad - 85% of them in England and Wales.

The report, by former TD Chris Flood, recommends the establishment of a dedicated unit within the Department of Foreign affairs to deal with prisoners and provide support for their families. It also calls for the establishment of a register of
Irish prisoners abroad.

The document has also been welcomed by the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas as providing a clear template on providing outreach services. The Commission was established some years ago by the Catholic hierarchy, and Dr. Seamus Hegarty, Bishop of Derry, in recent times presided at its annual conference.

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern, has publicly stated that
the Dublin government would now carefully examine all of the report�s recommendations.

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Replies:

Unpublished letter-24-10-06 -- Ex-Hib, Derry City, Sat, Aug 18 2007, 13:42:26 PDT
- Circulate to AOH in USA Request -- Derry Observer, Sat, Aug 18 2007, 14:38:49 PDT