Government faces McCabe killer crisis on eve of election

THE Government is facing the embarrassing scenario of seeing one of the killers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe's released on the eve of the General Election, according to The Irish Examiner today (6 March).

The Irish Examiner understands Michael O'Neill will be freed from Castlerea Prison on May 17, having served just eight years of his 11-year sentence.

Although Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has yet to set a date for the election, the most likely date is  Friday, May 18.

O'Neill's early release is sure to generate a barrage of criticism as voters prepare to go to the polls, forcing the Government to explain why he was legally entitled to early release and counter inevitable accusations that some kind of a deal was done.

Gerry Adams has accused Bertie Ahern of deception n the issue of the release of the McCabe killers. He says this was agreed explicitly at the time of the Good Friday agreement in 1998. At that stage the killers were not convicted by Adams has claimed (in a column in Village) that it was agreed in the event of them being convicted they would qualify for release under the Agreement.

Bertie Ahern has always insisted there was no such agreement, indeed that ti was made clear they killers, if convicted, would not qualify for release.

O'Neill was one of four IRA members jailed in February 1999 for the manslaughter of Det Gda McCabe and the malicious wounding of his colleague, Det Gda Ben O'Sullivan, during a botched robbery in Adare, Co Limerick, three years previously. The others were Pearse McCauley, Kevin Walsh and Jeremiah Sheehy.

McCauley and Walsh received 14-year sentences, while Sheehy was jailed for 12. O'Neill was given 11 years, but has qualified for remission on the grounds of good behaviour.

Prisoners in Ireland have a legal right to remission of one-quarter of their sentence, dependant on their behaviour while in prison.

In O'Neill's case, it means he must serve only eight years of his 11-year sentence, and provided he does not come to the prison authorities' attention in the coming weeks, will be released on May 17.

O'Neill is not the first person convicted in relation to the robbery to be released. A fifth man, John Quinn, received a six-year sentence for conspiring with others to commit robbery, and was released with remission in 2003.

However, O'Neill will be the first of the four killers to be freed.

Sinn Féin has consistently argued the ‘Castlerea Four', as they are referred to, qualify for early release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

The Government continues to reject that argument, although the Taoiseach and Tánaiste on separate occasions indicated their early release might be necessary as part of a final deal in the North's peace process.

As for the election, the Taoiseach is not obliged to hold it in May. It can be held anytime up to the first week in July.

However, it has long been expected that Mr Ahern will go to the country in mid to late May.