The widow of Det Garda Jerry McCabe says she is not worried her husband's killers will get early release from prison because of Government commitments that the terms of the Belfast Agreement will not apply to them.
Mrs Ann McCabe told the BBC NI programme Spotlight, in an interview to be broadcast tonight, she is sure the Government would honour the verbal and written reassurances she was given by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue.
"I have every confidence in the Government and future governments. . . . Public opinion would not accept their early release and I know the people would be behind me."
The daughter of a garda, Mrs McCabe gave the interview on her late husband's birthday, November 22nd. His partner, Det Garda Ben O'Sullivan, who was seriously wounded in the same incident in Adare, Co Limerick, on June 7th, 1996, retired on the same day.
Mrs McCabe said the Minister had assured her the release date for her husband's killers had nothing to do with the Belfast Agreement, "and we got a letter from the Minister confirming that. We were very pleased." It "reassures us that under no circumstances would they qualify under the Good Friday agreement".
Of RUC widows whose killers were given early release, she said: "I think it's dreadful for them. I too would find it very difficult to see these people walking around . . ."
She did not accept that the early release of the men who shot her husband would assist the peace process as "it had nothing to do with it".
She had not lived with the same fear as RUC wives and families and she revealed that letters from RUC widows were among the countless messages of sympathy she received. "I cringe and my heart goes out to the mothers, fathers, widows and partners of RUC officers who were killed."
She felt revulsion and anger when the IRA acknowledged that their members were involved in the killing - "but at the time of the shooting their superiors said they were not members".
As a Special Branch detective, her husband would have known his killers. "All the Special Branch knew them," she said. Mrs McCabe said on the final days of the trial "we were sitting so close to them and it was very difficult. We tried not to focus on them and it made me angry to see them standing there and Jerry gone."
She was angry at the sentences and by the conditions under which the killers are kept. "To me it sounds like a hotel. I feel the sentences were far too lenient and that they should not have the privileges that they got."
The killing "has had an enormous effect on me and my children, who are trying to deal with it as best they can. Jerry's father has also died since and he never got over Jerry's death.
"For me there is no future without Jerry. It does not get easier. As your family gets older you need your husband, your partner and your friend. I did not think that this would be taken away from me," she said.