A DAIL committee has called on the British Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, to refer the ease of Danny McNamee to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
McNamee, who is serving a 25 year sentence for conspiring in the 1982 Hyde Park bombings, is in a rapidly deteriorating mental and physical condition, his brother, Mr Francis McNamee, told the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday.
The committee chairman, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, said it was unprecedented to approach the British Home Secretary in this manner, but there was overwhelming evidence the Crown Prosecution Service had deliberately suppressed facts that would probably have led to McNamee's acquittal in his 1986 trial.
Mr Tom Kitt (FF) was among the members of the committee who urged an all party visit from the committee to inspect the conditions under which McNamee is held in a special secure unit at Full Sutton, near York.
Mr Kitt said McNamee's solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce, said he had the best case of any client she ever handled for a referral to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Senator Sean Maloney (Lab) supported the idea that the committee should inspect the conditions in which McNamee is being held. "Time is not on our side", he said. "The man I saw last November is not the man I saw a year ago.
"As someone who worked as a psychiatric nurse, I would be seriously concerned about his mental condition," he said.
Mr Francis McNamee told the committee that his brother appeared to have lost two stone in weight and his doctor said he was suffering from a form of rickets because he had no access to natural light.
According to Mr McNamee, prisoners in the special secure unit of Full Sutton are incarcerated for, 21 hours, get exercise for one hour and recreation for two. When, they are transferred to Long Kesh, they think they are in a hotel," he said.