REPUBLICAN PRISONERS in Portlaoise maximum security jail enjoy a relaxed prison regime in which they hold military-style parades, have murals on the walls and can order in steak dinners, a conference was told yesterday.
The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) said it was “alarmed” that the parades are permitted and claimed that prison officers even had to withdraw from landings when the dissident subversive groups were parading.
The association’s deputy general secretary Eugene Dennehy said that there were “huge murals” on the walls of landings similar to “something you’d see on the gable end of a house in west Belfast”.
He also said flaps had been put on the CCTV cameras on the landings to limit the area the cameras can cover in the jails. He called on Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern to intervene.
“These are very serious matters and that’s why we’re calling on the Minister to get involved,” he said at the closing session of the association’s annual conference in Castlebar, Co Mayo.
A dirty protest had been conducted for 17 days in Portlaoise prison involving six Real IRA inmates. This had begun because periods of temporary release had been withdrawn following the Real IRA murders of two British soldiers outside a barracks in Co Antrim in March.
Mr Dennehy also revealed people visiting dissident inmates did not have to undergo searching by sniffer dogs. The inmates were also permitted to order steak into the jail to be cooked for them.
Director general of the Irish Prison Service Brian Purcell said that historically republican prisoners in Portlaoise had experienced a different prison regime to other criminals. He confirmed that prisoners were allowed order food in to the jail but that this happened only two or three times per year. This arrangement was “historically there”.
The food was always cooked in the kitchen and not by the inmates on their own landings.
“There is no question of them running the kitchen themselves or throwing wild parties every night,” he said.
He confirmed people visiting the dissident prisoners were not searched by sniffer dogs, like visitors to other jails. This was for “operational reasons” that he said he could not elaborate on.
However, it was envisaged the same searching regimes would be introduced to all jails in the near future.
He said while some groups held marches, or “a sort of fall out when they’re being locked up at night”, there was no question staff had to withdraw from the landings when it was happening.
When asked if there were murals in the jail painted by the republican groupings Mr Purcell confirmed prisoners had painted on the walls.
He did not accept that a “double standards” system existed in the jails that dissident prisoners were benefiting from. The regime in place was 30 years old.
“There were particular reasons for that and political decisions were taken in relation to the status of republican prisoners. Even in the darkest days of the Troubles there was a status or particular regime in place there.
“Prisoners ultimately played an important role and that would be acknowledged by most commentators on the peace process. If the same standards that the POA are suggesting should be applied now were applied in the days gone by I just wonder would that type of progress have been made.”
He said the situation with republican prisoners still has to be viewed through a “particular operational and security” lens.