Callely gets job tending Wheatfield grounds

Ivor Callely will be out of 23-hour lock up as early as today and will be given a job tending the grounds at Wheatfield Prison, it has emerged.

The 56-year-old, who his solicitor said was “incredibly energetic”, and traumatised at being locked up for 23 hours, was able to go to the prison gym yesterday for a workout.

The Clontarf man is being accommodated in a special, secure area of the west Dublin prison, which also holds Daniel McDonnell and Keith Hall, who murdered Melanie McCarthy in February 2012.

However, Callely — jailed for five months for expenses fraud — will not have much interaction with them, it is thought. He will interact with other inmates working on the grounds and when he uses other facilities, such as the gym and the library.

The former Fianna Fáil junior minister, who has his own cell, has been on 23-hour lock-up since he transferred to Wheatfield on Friday evening from the medical unit in Mountjoy.

Callely was due to be brought to Wheatfield last week but ended up in the specialist section of Mountjoy’s medical unit after clinicians became concerned for his welfare.

He stayed at the high support unit until Friday.

Prison bosses decided against placing him in the general prison population and put him in a secure section. Sources said this was to “ensure his safety”, but rejected it was special treatment.

The West 2 block contains a high-security area, where a number of inmates are kept on 23-hour lock-up on safety grounds. They include McDonnell, 19, and Hall, 25. Both were convicted of the murder of 16-year-old Melanie McCarthy, who was mistakenly shot dead in Brookfield, Tallaght, in February 2012.

It is thought Callely’s restricted regime will end as early as today and he will join a large team of inmates who work on the grounds of Wheatfield Prison. He is also expected to have normal access to the gym.

Callely’s solicitor, Noel O’Hanrahan, told RTÉ’s Liveline yesterday: “I think he’s finding it extremely difficult in the context of somebody who has been so extremely active, cycling 40km a day, and also involved in other physical activity, and that must be a terrible and traumatic shock to the system, being on 23-hour lock-up.”

He said he had written to the Prison Service asking to move him to the training unit, a pre-release centre for low-risk inmates.

“We’re very anxious that possibly he could be moved into the training unit for the purposes of having a more humane situation where his particular needs could be dealt with,” he said.