Fury as IRA prisoners escape visiting time cuts

BUDGET cuts have led to visiting times being cut at Castlerea Prison — but it will not affect the IRA members jailed in connection with the death of Garda Jerry McCabe or notorious Border Fox Dessie O’Hare and his INLA colleague Declan Duffy.

There will be no visits on Mondays and Tuesdays for the vast majority of inmates in the Roscommon jail. But approximately 30 held in the chalet-type Grove accommodation will be allowed visits on those days.

These include Pearse McAuley, Jeremiah Sheehy, Michael O’Neill, Kevin Walsh and John Quinn, all jailed in connection with the death of Garda McCabe in Adare, Co Limerick, in 1996. O’Hare is serving a 40-year sentence for kidnap, while Duffy was sentenced to nine years for his involvement in a violent confrontation involving the INLA at a warehouse in Dublin in 1999.