ROISIN McAliskey has been told that if she gives birth while being held on remand in Holloway Prison she will not be allowed 10 keep her baby with her. There is a mother and baby unit in the jail, but as a Category A prisoner she will not be admitted to it if there are other women there with their babies, and this is almost certain to be the case.
At a meeting in Dublin on Tuesday night Bernadette McAlikey spoke of her daughter. She was - as she has always been in adversity - eloquent, humorous, careful to stress that Roisin's case should not be viewed in isolation, but rather as part of a pattern of what is happening to republican prisoners who are being held in Britain.
She had talked to her daughter just before coming to the meeting and had learnt of this latest pressure on her. Roisin said that the prison governor was "decent" about it. Many of her problems stem from the fact that, although she is on remand and her extradition to Germany has not yet been authorised, she has been identified as a Category A "two star" prisoner who is likely to attempt to escape.
This means that she may not move around the prison unless accompanied by a guard, and is denied the company of other inmates. She cannot be admitted to the hospital unit for treatment if there are other prisoners there.
Ms McAliskey has also been told, according to her mother, that the local National Health Service has said that it will not accept, her as a patient except as a "genuine emergency". She has already experienced complications in her pregnancy and is fearful that this means she will not be taken to hospital unless there are difficulties in labour.
The question that immediately springs to mind is why such extraordinary security precautions are thought to be necessary. It is true that the German authorities are seeking Ms McAliskey's extradition in connection with the IRA's bombing of a British army base at Osnabruck last year and that she could face serious charges.
Against this she is six months pregnant, weighs less than seven stone and is, according to her solicitor, "tiny and very frail". Many Irish people will suspect that there is a degree of vindictiveness here directed at the mother, a belated punishment, perhaps, for the young Bernadette Devlin's House of Commons attack on the plump and stately person of Reginald Maudling after Bloody Sunday.
THERE may be some truth in this. But at last Tuesday's meeting Bernadette McAliskey and other speakers rejected it as being less than the whole story. Eamonn O Cuiv, who has a long record of working for the welfare of Irish prisoners in Britain, placed it squarely in the context of what he sees as the much harsher treatment of republican prisoners since the IRA ceasefire in August 1994.
He drew a link between this and the story of the IRA jailbreak from Whitemoor Prison in September 1994, an escape attempt which now appears to have been aided and abetted by prison guards, if not actually organised by them.
This very rum yarn has received considerable attention in the British media - rather less in our own - following the collapse of the trial of six prisoners, five republican and one English, a fortnight ago. If even half of the allegations that have been made by lawyers in the case are true, it raises the most serious questions as to whether people within the British establishment planned to use the period of the ceasefire to break the spirit of republican prisoners, and thus undermine the whole peace process.
The judge in the case, Mr Justice Maurice Kay, halted the trial in Woolwich Crown Court after a report in the London Evening Standard was judged to be "prejudicial" to the prisoners' chance of a fair hearing. It was the second time it had happened. On this occasion the judge ruled that it would not be in the public interest for the accused to stand trial for a third time.
The men had been held for long periods in one of the notorious Special Secure Units in Belmarsh Prison. Reports from three leading psychiatrists found that they had "developed severe mental illnesses, including depression, anxiety and post traumatic stress disorder" caused by their isolation which would affect their mental health.
Many of those directly involved in the trial believe that its premature collapse was, to say the least, fortunate. The proceedings had already yielded enough plot lines to pack an airport thriller. The prison governor admitted on oath that he had misled the official inquiry into the IRA escape. One prison officer had disappeared, "in fear of his life", according to his wife. Another had died in a car accident on the way to court to give evidence. Video evidence and other records relating to the case had gone missing.
When the case was abandoned, the defence barrister, Michael Mansfield, claimed that he had evidence to show that the men could not have escaped without substantial help from prison warders who had cut through the high perimeter fence around the jail.
There has been talk of intelligence service involvement. This would not be the first time that the British authorities have facilitated an IRA escape. An inquiry into the 1991 escape of two republican prisoners from Brixton revealed that the Special Branch had recruited a guard to help the men.
SOME observers believe that the escape, which took place two weeks after the IRA declared its original ceasefire in August 1994, was organised deliberately to place a question mark over the IRA's intentions and its capacity to control its own ranks.
Others, experienced in dealing with the British over problems relating to prisoners, argue that there was another strategy behind this extraordinary episode. Mr O Cuiv thinks the trial and its aftermath have shed light on something which he has always suspected, that the Whitemoor escape was used as an excuse to introduce a much harsher regime for republican prisoners, including their confinement in Special Secure Units.
It is perhaps worth noting here that one of the doctors who examined those involved in the Whitemoor escape commented "this inhumane regime is unacceptable in modern British society, no matter what the crime."
The treatment of republican prisoners has been central to the peace process from the start. The Irish Government recognised it as possibly the most important measure available to build confidence at grassroots level in the move away from violence and into politics. It was always thought that the British government, while less sympathetic, accepted the argument for treating republican and loyalist prisoners generously.
Now it seems that a wholly contrary strategy was put into effect. Far from using the prisoners as a bridge to build trust in the wider community, attitudes have become more punitive than ever. This has fuelled the suspicion that the only outcome in which the British are interested is the defeat of the republican movement. Roisin McAliskey has been caught in this battle of wills. She is not the only one.