A PROPOSAL to reduce the sentences of some loyalist prisoners in Northern Ireland as a reward for maintaining their ceasefire after the IRA's Lisburn bombing will be put to the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major this week.
The chairman of the Conservative backbench Northern Ireland Committee, Mr Andrew Hunter MP, said yesterday "I would like the Government to look carefully at life sentence prisoners who are attached to organisations no longer involved in violence and see what the situation is as far as their health and likelihood of reoffending is."
The plan may reduce by two years the 10 year sentence a prisoner must serve before being considered for parole. There will also be a proposal for a reduction in sentence for those prisoners who renounce violence.
Referring to the review process for republican prisoners, Mr Hunter said he would prefer it to be heavily weighted against them because the IRA campaign was continuing and there was a likelihood that those prisoners would rejoin on their release.
"I would certainly advocate looking more favourably at loyalist prisoners who are indicating that they are no longer interested in violence."