Aras an Uachtaran has confirmed that Sabina Higgins visited an elderly peace activist in Limerick jail last weekend.

RECENTLY a friend of ours, a young Angolan woman, came to see us in great distress. We have known her since her arrival in Ireland in 2000 as an asylum seeker with a baby daughter.

RECENT press pictures showed hooded and blindfolded Afghans strapped to the bare metal floor of an aircraft with legs chained and an elaborate network of straps preventing them from sliding.