GRA never raised McCabe issue - Ahern

Dail Report: The Garda Representative Association never once raised the issue of the conditions in which Garda Jerry McCabe's killers were being kept, at any of the many meetings he had with them, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told the Dáil.

He said that "quite frankly we have moved to a position where the McCabe killers are not being released and now we are going to get an argument on where they're being held.

"That's a matter for the governor," he told Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who asked if the Taoiseach agreed with the GRA who called at their annual conference yesterday for the removal of special privileges the four prisoners had at Castlerea prison in Roscommon.

At the conference, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell rejected the GRA's call to remove those privileges.

During leaders' questions, Mr Kenny highlighted the "truly shocking situation" outlined in the inspector of prisons report that "these prisoners seemed to be running their own show in Castlerea, living in bungalows and ordering-in takeaway meals".

The leader asked what steps the Government had taken in the two months since the report was issued to "clamp down on a situation where these persons were effectively giving two fingers to the McCabe family, the Irish Government and the Irish people".

Mr Ahern said it was "entirely inaccurate to describe these prisoners as being in control of the prison.

The fact of the matter is that the murderers of Garda Jerry McCabe are in prison, they will remain there for the duration of their sentences and to the best of my knowledge there is no proposal to change that."

Insisting that the issue of their conditions was a matter for the governor, Mr Ahern added that, "the GRA on all the occasions when they met me never once raised that issue with me".

The prison was an open one but his understanding was that "it cannot be described as living in luxury and the McCabe killers along with the other prisoners incarcerated are under no illusions that they are in prison".

Mr Kenny said a house in the Grove area of the prison where the men were being held had only two occupants but "they will not allow anyone else to share it unless they are attached to their organisation. How can that be in an open prison that members of a group can determine who else the Governor of the prison should put into any particular area," he said.

The Fine Gael leader called for an assurance that the decision to locate these prisoners in the Grove area of Castlerea was "not as a result of any secret deal with the leadership of Sinn Féin".

The Government had gone "all the way to the Supreme Court" to reject Sinn Féin's vociferous argument that "the McCabe murderers should be let out under the Good Friday agreement".

He said there were "many attempts for us to come to an arrangement on that and I explained to the house previously that at one stage the Government was prepared to do that.

"There was no secret deal about it," he added.