LETTERS:PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE David Norris wrote letters in three cases seeking clemency on behalf of prisoners serving time in Irish jails in the past decade.
The letters, released to The Irish Timesunder the Freedom of Information Act, involved three sets of correspondence between Mr Norris and ministers for justice dating back to 2002.
In 2007, Mr Norris wrote to then minister Brian Lenihan over a foreign national who was serving a five-year term for possession of drugs for sale or supply. The letter suggested the man could be released and deported.
“I have been contacted by [name redacted under FoI] enclosing copy of documents from him. I told him that I think it is a very serious offence, particularly by somebody who is not even a citizen of the country but I do think there is a certain logic in getting rid of him. This would at least save the taxpayer money,” Mr Norris wrote.
The minister refused early release due to “the very serious nature of the offence and the length of sentence left to serve”.
In a letter dated January 24th, 2005, to then minister Michael McDowell, Mr Norris raised the case of a prisoner in Portlaoise Prison. He said the man’s wife was in poor health and expecting another child. Mr McDowell replied that he was approving the man for a pre-release programme.
In late 2002, Mr Norris wrote to Mr McDowell seeking temporary release over Christmas for a Traveller who, the letter said, “apparently robbed two tourists”. The request was refused.
Asked about the letters, Mr Norris said: “Sending clemency letters is part of the legal apparatus of every civilised country. It is therefore not only legal but an important element of any caring society.”
He said the 2002 and 2005 letters “were sent, like thousands of others I have written during my political career, in compassion for people facing intensely difficult circumstances. I think as a society we cannot turn our backs on the marginalised and need to show compassion”.
The FoI papers show Michael D Higgins wrote a letter on behalf of a woman in 2009 requesting information on whether her husband would be released from prison.
He said the pregnant woman, who had four children and whose mother was very ill, was under “tremendous pressure”. Then minister Dermot Ahern replied saying the man had been granted reviewable temporary release on compassionate grounds. A spokesman for Mr Higgins said he rarely wrote such letters but that “in this particular case, the circumstances of the family justified asking the minister to consider temporary release under very strict conditions”.