Nine IRA prisoners, including a man convicted of murdering Senator Billy Fox in 1974, will be freed from Portlaoise Prison tomorrow as part of the confidence-building measures intended to underpin the peace process.
The releases were agreed by the Government yesterday. All nine will be released on condition that they keep the peace and do not cause distress to the victims of the offences for which they were convicted. The conditions of their release prohibit them from doing or saying anything publicly to further the causes of the IRA.
The releases bring to 16 the number of prisoners freed in the Republic since the IRA reinstated its ceasefire last July.
Some 30 IRA prisoners remain in Portlaoise. About half of these are men convicted in this State. The remainder include about a dozen men transferred recently from British prisons and eight who are on remand awaiting trial.
All nine men being freed tomorrow were due to be released on dates between next summer and August, 2001. They include Sean Kinsella, who was convicted of murdering Senator Billy Fox, the only member of the Oireachtas to be killed during the current phase of the Troubles, at his home in Co Cavan in March, 1974.
Kinsella was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Senator Fox, but he escaped from Portlaoise two months after his conviction. He joined an IRA unit in England and was arrested there 11 months later after a shoot-out with police. He spent 20 years in jail in England and returned home last year. When gardai learned of this, they arrested him and returned him to Portlaoise.
Another of those being released, Brendan Dowd (48), from Tralee, also served 20 years in jail in Britain before being transferred to Portlaoise. Dowd was one of the IRA's leading members in Britain between 1974 and 1975. Shortly after his trial in 1976 he informed police through his solicitor that his IRA unit was responsible for the bombing in Guildford, Surrey, in which four people were killed. By then, four innocent young people - Carole Richardson, Paul Hill, Patrick Armstrong and Gerard Conlon, who became known as the Guildford Four - were serving 15-year sentences imposed after they were wrongfully convicted. Dowd's statement to his solicitor was ignored by the authorities and the four remained in jail until 1989.
Also being set free is Peter Eamon Maguire (59), one of the IRA's leading arms designers. He came to Garda attention when the FBI taped conversations in Boston in 1990 between him and a IRA member who was attempting to acquire equipment for a ground-to-air missile system.
Maguire, from Clondalkin, Co Dublin, was arrested by gardai while visiting his home in 1993 and was returned to the US, where he was jailed for six years and 10 months by a Boston court for conspiracy to export missile equipment. He was repatriated to Ireland earlier this year.
The six others being released are: John Moyna, of Scotstown, Co Monaghan; Andrew Gillespie, of Ballybofey, Co Donegal; Patrick Murphy, of Athboy, Co Meath, and James Ginley, of Monaghan, all of whom were serving sentences for possession of firearms and explosives; and Conor O'Neill and James Hughes, of Dungannon, who were serving 12-year sentences for attempting to murder a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment.