Efforts by almost 30 Irish people jailed abroad to serve the rest of their sentences in the State have been halted due to a Supreme Court decision, authorities have confirmed.
The Irish Prison Service said 27 transfer applications from prisoners abroad were “on hold”, and no repatriations had been completed since January following a ruling against the State earlier this year.
Ireland is part of the Council of Europe Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons, which allows for the transfer of prisoners back and forth between participating jurisdictions.
This typically results in about three or four prisoners being repatriated from abroad, usually the UK, every year to complete their sentences in Ireland. In 2015, for instance, 20 applications were concluded from just over 40 cases active that year.
Eleven applications have been completed of the 38 cases active since January 1st, 2016. It is understood the vast majority of cases delayed concern Irish prisoners in the UK.
Impasse
The impasse is caused by broader complications arising from the Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss an appeal against the release of three prisoners transferred to Ireland from the UK, where they were convicted of terrorist offences in 2002.
The State wanted to vary the detention warrants of Fintan O’Farrell, Declan Rafferty and Michael McDonald so they could be kept in prison after the original Irish warrants for the trio were found to be defective, but a July 2016 ruling upheld the decision to release the prisoners.
Responding to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fáil’s Éamon Ó Cuív on the issue, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald indicated that the judgment might necessitate legislative changes in order for current and future transfer applications to be processed.
She said the “complex nature” of the review by her department meant it might take some time to complete.
Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas co-ordinator Brian Hanley said families and prisoners had been left “in limbo” by the resultant uncertainty.
“Owing to a number of legal challenges in this jurisdiction in the last couple of years [prisoners] are not having their applications processed fully, with the result that both they and their families are left in a limbo-type situation,” he said.