'Loyalist and republican prisoners should be housed together': Westminster report

A Westminster committee is recommending that loyalist and republican prisoners in the North should be housed together instead of in separate wings.

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee said separating prisoners hampers education and recreation opportunities.

Politicians in London have always favoured integrating paramilitary prisoners in the North, saying they should not be treated differently from common criminals.

Integration, however, has a bloody history with loyalists and republicans attacking each other with boiling water, knives, snooker balls and other weapons leading to riots and injuries.

The same group of MPs also said a new jail is badly needed, recommending the existing site at Magilligan in north Derry.

An announcement is due next week that a new £200m (€278m) jail will be built there although some local people have claimed that it will blight what should be a beauty spot.