A High Court judge has given the State a final three weeks to file its opposition to a challenge by four men serving jail sentences in relation to the death of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe to an alleged policy to repeatedly refuse them temporary release.
Kevin Walsh, Michael O'Neill, Pearse McAuley and Jeremiah Sheehy, who are all in custody in Castlerea Prison, secured leave from the High Court last November to each bring judicial review challenges over the refusals of temporary release from January 2004.
The case has been in the High Court list since and has been adjourned on a number of occasions to allow the State file its opposition. When the matter was mentioned again yesterday, and Mr Eoin McCullough SC, for the State, sought a further adjournment, counsel for the men said it had been adjourned at three-week intervals since December.
Mr McCullough said all the papers would be filed within three weeks. Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill said he would adjourn the matter for three weeks but this was the final adjournment to allow opposition papers be filed.
The four are serving sentences ranging from 11 to 14 years in connection with the attempted robbery of the post office at Adare, Co Limerick on June 7th, 1996 which resulted in the death of Det Garda McCabe.
They are seeking an order quashing the refusals of temporary release. They are also seeking declarations that the repeated refusals of temporary release since January 2004 are capricious, arbitrary and an unjust exercise of the temporary release powers of the Governor and the Minister for Justice.
They also want a declaration that they are entitled to have their requests for temporary release reconsidered.
The men claim they have been singled out, in an arbitrary and unjust manner and without any objective justification, for exclusion from proper consideration for temporary release.