BRENDAN O'Donnell is unlikely to see freedom until he is physically incapable of killing again.
As he began a sentence of life imprisonment in Arbour Hill jail last night, senior Garda and prison officials were of the opinion that he will not be released until he is no longer physically capable of posing a threat to society.
Although he will be entitled to apply for parole after seven years, sources close to the Life Sentence Review Board say they categorise a small number of prisoners as being unsafe to release.
After O'Donnell's conviction by a 10-2 majority verdict yesterday of three murders in Co Clare in 1994, a senior detective close to the investigation said he thought if O'Donnell had had access to better weapons he could have carried out a massacre on the scale of the Dunblane killings where 16 children and their teacher were shot dead.
As the longest criminal jury trial in the State's history came to an end after 53 days, the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, ordered an inquiry into how the psychiatric services dealt with O'Donnell.
His decision followed sharp criticisms in court of how the Western Health Board's psychiatric hospital in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, released O'Donnell two weeks after he had stabbed his sister in 1992.
The inquiry will be conducted by the Inspector of Mental Hospitals, Dr Dermot Walsh, who roundly condemned the Ballinasloe hospital in his 1992 report. O'Donnell's contacts with the psychiatric services date from when he was four years old and if is not clear if Dr Walsh's inquiry will cover all this time. The chief executive officer of the Western Health Board, Mr Eamonn Hannan, refused to comment on the issue.
The Garda handling of the early stages of the search for O'Donnell was also criticised at the time of the murders but senior gardai have vehemently defended their inquiry.
Senior Garda sources also said the jury's decision to reject O'Donnell's case that he was "guilty but insane" vindicated the State's position that he is not mad but a permanent danger to society.
One senior detective warned last night that if O'Donnell had obtained modern weapons. "We would have been on the map before Scotland." Although it only briefly emerged in evidence during the trial, O'Donnell told gardai who had won his confidence he was coached in feigning insanity by John Gallagher, the Donegal man who killed Mrs Annie Gillespie and her daughter Ann in 1988.
A jury found Gallagher guilty but insane and he has made a number of attempts to be released from the Central Mental Hospital on the grounds that he is now sane. Only the intervention of the Government prevents his release.
Gardai believe Ms Imelda Riney was abducted because O'Donnell had decided to rape and kill her. Her son was killed because O'Donnell believed he could have identified him. The gardai believe Father Joe Walsh was murdered after he caught O'Donnell breaking into his house after killing the Rineys.
The Garda investigation into the triple murder was one of the most detailed undertaken by the force. Gardai who participated in O'Donnell's arrest were praised for their bravery by the trial judge.
During the murder investigation, gardai examined aspects of the handling of the case. The misidentification of the burned out remains of Ms Riney's car, which led to a delay of two days before it was positively identified, was a result of the removal by O'Donnell of the number plates and problems with identifying the chasis number. There were also delays in communications between the adjoining Garda divisions in Clare and Galway. While the car remained unidentified, O'Donnell abducted and murdered Father Walsh.
Meanwhile, O'Donnell's father, Michael Pat alleged during the trial to have physically mistreated his son denied yesterday that he had brutalised him and said he would never forgive him.