Republicans repeat prison segregation demands

Republicans were today set to intensify demands for paramilitary prisoners to be segregated at a top-security Northern Ireland jail.

As the crisis inside Maghaberry Prison showed no signs of easing, Sinn Féin representatives were holding talks with the review panel examining inmates’ safety.

But Raymond McCartney, an ex-IRA hunger striker, warned against allowing a dangerous delay to develop.

He said: “There is a real fear that a review may cause a delay and allow time for the situation to deteriorate further.”

Authorities have been under growing pressure since dissident republican prisoners at the jail, near Lisburn, Co Antrim, began a dirty protest last month.

Excrement was smeared on cell walls in a bid to force prison bosses to give in and separate them from loyalists held in the complex.

Even though the prison regime has refused to give in to the demands, the British government has set up a special review panel involving clergymen and former top civil servant John Steele.

Mr Steele headed the Northern Ireland Prison Service following the 1981 IRA hunger strikes inside the old Maze Prison which Mr McCartney took part in.

As the two men prepared to meet, the Sinn Féin representative insisted: “We need to see segregation introduced at Maghaberry. That is what we will tell John Steele and his team.”

Mr McCartney added that prison bosses who were able to keep feuding loyalists apart in the past should now act again.

“The policy of segregation for different loyalist factions was taken on the grounds of safety concerns and taken without a review being put in place,” he said.

“Logically that same approach should be adopted without delay and segregation introduced in the prison immediately.”