A SMALL number of the 36 IRA members freed by the early release scheme put in place by the Government after the ceasefire have emerged as leading opponents of a renewed ceasefire.
Two men released have been connected to the IRA unit which gardai say killed Det Garda Jerry McCabe and injured his colleague, Det Garda Ben O'Sullivan, on Friday.
The Garda assessment of the reinvolvement of ex prisoners is understood to have been arrived at in recent months. It is not known if the information has been communicated to the Government through the Department for Justice.
There has been no renewal of the early release programme for IRA prisoners since the IRA called off its ceasefire and bombed London on February 9th last.
Up to then, 36 IRA prisoners had been released in four groups from Christmas, 1994. Some 24 IRA prisoners remain in two blocks of the high security prison at Portlaoise.
Up until recently the Government has been proposing to move the remaining IRA prisoners to the low security prison under construction at Castlerea, Co Roscommon, which is due for completion next year.
This would allow the two blocks in Portlaoise, which have a total of 80 cells, to be used to house "ordinary" criminals. The whole expansion and reorganisation of the prison system, announced earlier this year by the Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, depended on the agreement of the remaining IRA prisoners to be moved to the new low security prison.
The early release of prisoners has been a main plank in the Government's policy of appeasing the IRA with the hope of consolidating the "peace process".
Immediately after the killing of Mr Frank Kerr, a Newry postal worker, in November 1994, the then Minister for Justice, Mrs Maire Geoghegan Quinn, announced the suspension of the prisoner early release programme, stating: "These releases were based specifically on the premise that the Provisionial IRA campaign of violence was over for good."
She said the considerations for releasing prisoners early included length of sentence already served, the offender's conduct in prison and the "likely threat to the community if the offender were granted early release".
During her statement explaining the early release programme Mrs Geoghegan Quinn also said the Government would like to see Garda resources diverted from the "battle against terrorism towards the battle against crime."
Soon after, the Fianna Fail Labour coalition government collapsed and was replaced by the present Government. After consultations with the Sinn Fein leadership, the new Government agreed to institute the prisoner early release programme and the first nine men were freed that Christmas.
Among the prisoners released in the past 18 months were men who openly advocated ending the ceasefire. One man was seen by gardai meeting Eddie O'Brien, the Co Wexford IRA man who blew himself up in the West End of London last February. Two others are, closely associated with the Limerick IRA unit which carried out Friday's killing.