A report on a prisoner, Thomas Murray, who committed murder a second time while on temporary release from prison, reveals he was allowed out despite the prison governor's warning that he would "kill again".
It also reveals that gardai were opposed to allowing him out of Castlerea Prison, even on temporary release.
Murray was serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder of Mr William Mannion when he killed retired teacher Ms Nancy Nolan at her Co Galway home in February 2000.
"Looking at the affair now in hindsight, it must be assumed that there would have been a risk to people at any time while he was on release," the report says.
One of Ms Nolan's two surviving sisters, Ms Eileen Glynn, criticised the Minister of Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, for the timing of the report, "on the last day of the Dail".
Ms Nancy Nolan was bludgeoned to death by Murray, who had been a former pupil of hers, at her home near Ballygar on the Galway-Roscommon border.
"The local gardai never wanted this man out because they knew what he was capable of. Yet he was let out, and he murdered my sister," Ms Glynn said.
The report by Mr John Olden, vice-president of the Council of Europe's Committee on Torture and Degrading Treatment, says the prison governor remarked at a meeting on October 27th, 1998, that Murray would "kill again" if released.
However, Mr Olden said the governor later gave him a "verbal assurance" that he did not oppose a temporary release. His report finds that gardai were "generally opposed" to releasing people who had committed very serious crimes.
Mr Olden's report outlines a "disturbing" discrepancy between Castlerea Prison and Prison Service headquarters records over what exactly had been decided about Murray's outings during a meeting in Castlerea in September 1999.
Mr Olden described the "difference in appreciation" between the two parties as being "to say the least disturbing". However, he states it was "almost certain" a programme of unaccompanied home visits would have been approved.
Mr Olden's recommendations include a "tightening-up" of procedures for managing life sentence prisoners.