A Co Monaghan woman who was serving a four-year sentence for arson has been released from prison after an appeal to Judge Frank O'Donnell.
"You might as well send me to death row. I beg you on my knees not to send me back to prison, which has destroyed me," Mary Murphy said at the review of her case at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Murphy (21), Cherry Park, Clones, Co Monaghan, was jailed last July after she pleaded guilty to committing arson at her former boyfriend's Dublin home on May 31st, 1997, after an argument.
The court heard she had also set fire to her family home six months later. Judge O'Donnell released her on condition that she reside with her brother for at least one year.
He directed that she enter into a bond to keep the peace and abide by the instructions of the probation service for two years, and to return to the court for a further review on July 26th. Earlier, Mr Raymond Farrell, defending, said Murphy was not a pyromaniac but an alcoholic and was not getting treatment in prison and had gone downhill there.
Mr Farrell noted that a psychological report on Murphy last year forecast that prison would not help her, and this was what had happened.
Prison was not working for her, and she was deteriorating by the day.
Judge O'Donnell said his only concern was to provide a secure environment for her and society in general. He said that while her brother would provide a residence there was an absence of a programme to help her.
Judge O'Donnell agreed to Murphy's request to speak to him. She said she accepted he had a difficult decision to make but she could not cope with prison, which was destroying her.
She was willing to reside in a local psychiatric hospital if the court directed that.
Last year Garda Peter Mulryan told the court Murphy and her boyfriend got drunk in Dublin city centre before they returned to the boyfriend's home, where they consumed a bottle of whisky and a bottle of vodka.
A row ensued, and an angry Murphy went downstairs, turned on the gas cooker and set fire to the kitchen. The fire spread to other parts of the house, causing £32,000 in damage.
Murphy told gardai that at the time of the incident her boyfriend started throwing cassette tapes around the room and would not let her sleep.
She said that as flames quickly spread throughout the kitchen, she ran up the stairs and shouted at him that the house was on fire but he just replied "All right" and went back to sleep.
The court heard she had come from Clones earlier that week after having a fight with her father and went on a drinking binge. She was a chronic alcoholic, and her mother had separated from her father when she was 14.