Prospects of IRA ceasefire "linked to prisoners"

REPUBLICANS have indicated that the repatriation of prisoners from English jails would help to contribute to the climate necessary for a renewed IRA ceasefire.

Sinn Fein leaders have been stating that in order to create the conditions for a new ceasefire, inclusive talks, a timetable for a political settlement, and "confidence building measures" such as the early release or repatriation of prisoners to jails in the North and South are necessary.

Mr Michael Browne, spokesman for Sinn Fein's prisoners' department, and the organisation's Northern chairman, Mr Gerry O hEara, suggested yesterday that movement on prisoners could assist the potential for a new ceasefire. The prospects of an IRA ceasefire and the repatriation of prisoners were obviously linked, to some degree, Mr O hEara said.

Mr Browne said that the British government must not "continue to ignore" the depth of feeling which exists throughout Ireland on the issue of paramilitary prisoners.

"The continued ill treatment of Irish political prisoners and the failure of the British government to implement existing transfer arrangements fall far short of the type of confidence building measure required, and therefore lend nothing of a positive nature to the current situation.

"Having squandered a very real opportunity for building peace, John Major must now demonstrate his bona fides. Rather than waste time on meaningless rhetoric he and his government must demonstrate in a practical sense that they are now committed to building peace in this country", Mr Browne said.

At present, according to Mr Browne, 33 republican prisoners are being held in England. Six of the prisoners are now in their 22nd year in prison, while a further 17 are confined to special security units in Belmarsh prison.

Families of the prisoners were experiencing great financial and psychological difficulties in visiting them. Because of restrictions such as "closed visits" in which families were not allowed physical contact with the prisoners some families had not visited their prisoner relatives in over two years.

Ms Maria Magee, wife of Paul Magee, who is serving a 30 year sentence in Whitemoor Prison for murdering a policeman in Yorkshire, said that neither she nor her six children had seen him since August 1994.

Magee was in daily 23 hour solitary lock up for attempting to escape from the prison in September 1994, and as a result was staging a dirty protest, she said. He was not prepared to have his family visit him because of the closed visits in which he would be physically separated from his family by a partition.

Mr O hEara said that the British Home Office was being "petty and vindictive" on prisoners. All the legislation was in place to allow for repatriation to prisons in the North and South, and it was simple vindictiveness that was preventing such movement.