State Papers: Maze tunnel was 'therapy' as leaders never intended escape to happen

The Republican leadership in the prison did not want the tunnel plot to work over fears “hard-line Republican prisoners” could escape and attempt to derail negotiations for a renewed IRA ceasefire

Briege Gadd of the Northern Ireland Probation Board also ridiculed the inquiry being conducted by the Northern Ireland Office into the tunnel and also castigated the relaxed prison regime at the Maze.

IRA leaders in the Maze prison outside Belfast allowed inmates to work on an escape tunnel they knew would not be successful in 1997 on the basis it would act as a form of “occupational therapy” to keep prisoners away from drugs.

Details of the bizarre, doomed escape plot by Republican prisoners in the Maze prison are contained in a confidential note forwarded to the Department of Foreign Affairs in April 1997.