A drug dealer sentenced to five years in jail is on the run again after walking out the gates of an open prison within weeks of being recaptured following five months on the run from Mountjoy Prison, Dublin.
Tony Gregory TD (Ind) said the case "completely undermines the so-called tough approach" on drug dealing being claimed by Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell.
Mr Gregory said "every second person" in his Dublin Central constituency knows the local authority flats complex where the drug dealer in question is regularly staying with his partner and yet he remains at large.
"This is an area that's been ravaged by drugs," he said. "People are outraged that when a drug dealer is put behind bars this is the way he is treated. It completely undermines the claims that the Government is taking a tough line on drugs."
Mr McDowell has requested reports on the embarrassing incident from both the Irish Prison Service and Garda Commissioner.
The inmate, Jonathan Dunne, Drumalee Road, Dublin 7, is well known to gardaí. His uncle, Derek Dunne, was a major heroin dealer at the time he was shot dead in Amsterdam over a drug debt six years ago.
The 24-year-old was granted a three-day period of compassionate release in January but failed to return to Mountjoy.
On that occasion he remained at large for more than five months. He was returned to jail after being recaptured by gardaí in the first week of June. He was then transferred after a number of days to the Midlands Prison, Portlaoise.
He remained at that secure prison until mid-August when he was transferred to Shelton Abbey, an open prison for low-risk inmates in Co Wicklow. About four weeks after arriving there he walked out of the prison gates and has remained at large ever since.
He has spent much of his time staying at his partner's home in Dublin 1. However, despite repeated attempts by gardaí to apprehend him at that address he has evaded them.
Dunne was caught in possession of amphetamine in Drumcondra, Dublin, in August 2002. In February 2004, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment with the final year suspended.
At that point he had been in custody for seven months. If he had not absconded from custody he was due for release next March.
Mr Gregory said the facts of Dunne's case proved the war on drugs was in disarray. He said because Dunne is a drug dealer his temporary release should not have been granted. Furthermore, he says, when Dunne absconded in January he should not have been allowed to remain at large for five months.
He found it hard to believe that having been returned to prison he would be transferred to an open jail "where he could just walk out the gate". "I had to raise it by way of a Dáil question to get him arrested the first time he absconded in January and now he's out again," Mr Gregory said.
A spokesman for the prison service said the transfer of an inmate with Dunne's history to an open prison was "a mistake". He said steps had been taken to ensure there would be no similar transfers.
A spokeswoman for Mr McDowell said the Minister believed the transfer to Shelton Abbey should never have happened.