It’ll be painful, but early releases will happen if peace talks succeed

IF a broken promise will ultimately bring a permanent settlement to Northern Ireland, then political expediency will prevail and Jerry McCabe’s killers will not serve their full sentence.

Whatever assurances Minister for Justice Michael McDowell may have given to the Garda Representative Association (GRA) are irrelevant because he was pre-conditioned by the imperative of a Northern solution.

Yet the representatives of the GRA afterwards said that they were "reassured" that the killers will remain in jail.

In fact, what they got from the minister was a qualified explanation on the present situation, which is useless. Oh, and they were told that whatever proposals they made "may" go to next Tuesday's cabinet meeting. It was a futile exercise, because the Government has its mind made up.

Only time can save Taoiseach Bertie Ahern from betraying Ann McCabe by letting her husband's killers out of jail on early release.

Ironically, it is only if success in the peace process is deferred, allowing the killers' jail sentences run their course, that Bertie Ahern would be saved from an historic embarrassment. Given the tortuous route events there take, Northern Ireland may well oblige the Taoiseach.

Otherwise, the killers of Det Garda McCabe will "slither" through the gates of Castlerea Prison on the back of the Good Friday Agreement. That has been agreed by the Taoiseach, by Tánaiste Mary Harney and the Minister for Justice. And by Gerry Adams.

The written assurance given by former Minister for Justice, John O'Donoghue, on behalf of the Government, that the killers would serve their full sentences is now not worth the paper it was written on.

In an attempt to make the Government adhere to that promise, the family of the late Jerry McCabe issued a statement this week saying they continued to trust the Government's promises.

The McCabe family statement said: "As the undertakings given by government were sealed with the lifeblood of a guardian of the law, cruelly slain in the performance of his duties on behalf of the civil power, the position of the McCabe family is unchanged."

The family said their sole consolation had been the solemn undertaking given by the Government that rulings of the courts of the land would be complied with.

I hope that trust is returned but I doubt it because the pragmatism of politics will dictate otherwise, and abiding by solemn undertakings is not a characteristic of this Government.

We know exactly what they mean when promising something won't happen "secretly or otherwise." Nothing was more secret than the agreement to release those killers. Not even the Dáil knew.

In fact, those four men would be free by now were it not for the collapse of the negotiations to restore the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland last year. That happened because the unionists would not accept assurances about the IRA's third act of decommissioning.

So in fact the reason Det Garda McCabe's killers are still in prison has more to do with unionist suspicion of the IRA, than any nobility on the part of the Irish Government in honouring a written promise to his widow.

It is glaringly obvious at this stage, despite Government denials, that there was an agreement to give the four IRA men early release.

Gerry Adams has insisted that there was, and is, such an agreement.

"Release of the Castlerea prisoners was part of an agreed sequence of statements and actions. Release was part of agreed sequence," he said this week.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, although originally denying that there was an agreement, has used much the same language in the same context in the Dáil.

It would not have been in exchange for a single act of decommissioning but in the context of total acts of completion. It would, he said, have been part of a of a complex set of undertakings, involving a range of elements which would emerge "as a sequence of agreed statements and supporting actions."

Since then he has been more forthcoming and said that the issue of the early release of the killers of Det Garda McCabe will have to be dealt with if a final agreement is to be signed in the Northern Ireland peace process.

And if there's any lingering doubt as a result of the Government's ifs-and-buts spin, remember that Bertie Ahern has maintained that Sinn Féin would not be able to convince the IRA leadership to move Ireland away from violence unless the issue is dealt with.

All that remains, to quote David Trimble, is for the IRA to jump.

THE Tánaiste is of like mind as the Taoiseach. She said that the release of the killers of Det Garda Jerry McCabe would not be considered except in circumstances in which paramilitary activities had come to a complete end and that the IRA was stood down forever.

She said on RTÉ radio that those circumstances would also have to include the implementation of all aspects of the Good Friday Agreement and the completion of paramilitary decommissioning. She said those circumstances were still far away.

Her party colleague, the Minister for Justice, also said that the Government's position was that the four men would serve their full terms of imprisonment except if there were a total end to IRA activities.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has accused the Taoiseach of dishonesty in his handling of the controversy. People could no longer believe a word Mr Ahern told them as he said one thing in public and then made secret arrangements with the IRA.

In December, 1999, John O'Donoghue, then Minister for Justice, said in writing to Mrs McCabe, "I hope that what I said at the meeting provided you with assurance that there is no question of granting early release to those concerned, either under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, or for that matter, on any other basis either.

"I want to reassure you now, formally and in writing, that the Government's position from the beginning was that the men concerned are not covered by the terms of the Good Friday Agreement and that their transfer to Castlerea will have no bearing whatsoever on the question of early release.

"They will serve their time in Castlerea just as they would have in Portlaoise."

Mr Ahern said recently: "If we ever want to get the end of the IRA... and that's what I want to do, then we are going to have to be brave, we are going to have to take some pain and we are going to get some gain."

Consider those two statements and ask yourself which you would believe. It won't take long. Neither will it take too long to realise that at the end of the day there is going to be a lot more pain for the McCabe family.

The gain, hopefully, will be peace on the island and immense glory for the Government which helped achieve it.