A total of 418 paramilitary prisoners in the North's jails have officially applied for early release. The Sentence Review Commission will process their applications, and the first prisoners should walk free within weeks.
The prisoners returned their completed forms to the Commission, which said yesterday it had sent back 15 because they failed to meet the release criteria or were completed incorrectly.
Some 420 prisoners affiliated to the IRA, UVF and UDA/UFF were eligible to apply under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. Of these, 100 are serving life sentences. More than 100 UDA prisoners are believed to have applied for release, along with more than 200 IRA inmates and almost 100 from the UVF.
The DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, said: "Mo Mowlam is stampeding towards prisoner releases despite the fact that all these organisations are still involved in criminal activity and have delivered on none of their promises. I have spoken to dozens of people who have been kneecapped by loyalist paramilitaries in the past couple of months, but the Secretary of State is determined to empty the jails."
As controversy over the planned releases continued in Northern Ireland yesterday the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, said anyone convicted of the murder of Det Garda Jerry McCabe would not qualify for early release under the terms of the agreement.
Speaking at Adare, Co Limerick, yesterday, near the scene of the 1996 shooting in which the detective died, Mr Ahern said the agreement, as it related to the release of prisoners convicted of killing gardai, would have to be honoured. But he said it did not cover anyone convicted of involvement in the killing of Det Garda McCabe and seriously injuring a colleague, because at the time the agreement was signed nobody had been charged with this offence.
"I signed an agreement in which some of the persons involved in activities against gardai will be released. That is what has to be honoured by the Government," Mr Ahern said.
He said he knew it was hard on the families of those involved, but the influence of the prisoners from inside had formed a central part of the ceasefire. Garda representative groups have objected to anyone convicted of killing a garda being included in the early release scheme.
Anyone convicted of McCabe murder will not get early release: page 5