IRA prisoner’s girlfriend is pregnant

FRESH questions are being asked about the security regime at Castlerea prison where IRA members are being held after it emerged that the girlfriend of one of the IRA men is pregnant.

The prisoner, Walter Nagle, is serving five years for firearms offences and has not been given temporary release since he was jailed in late 2002.

Conjugal visits are banned throughout the prison service but sources in Castlerea said there was very little supervision of visits to IRA inmates.

Various sources said Nagle's girlfriend is very obviously pregnant, possibly as much as six months. She still visits the Roscommon prison regularly.

A Prison Service spokesman refused to comment on any individual prisoner. However, he added that conjugal visits are banned. While inmates in the Grove facility have a certain amount of freedom, visits are supervised and monitored on CCTV, said the spokesman.

But sources in Castlerea said parts of the visiting area are not covered by cameras, particularly a store room at the end of the block.

Officers are not physically present in the area during visits to the IRA inmates, the source added.

"There's an unofficial policy we don't go near them," said the insider.

The Grove facility, with its chalet-type accommodation and a regime based on trust, is unique in the Irish prison system. It's an open prison surrounded by a high-security perimeter.

There are eight IRA prisoners and two INLA members, Dessie Fox and Declan Duffy, in the compound. Four of the IRA men are serving time for the killing of Garda Jerry McCabe while the other four were jailed after being stopped as they travelled to carry out a punishment attack.

Nagle, 26, was one of four Cork men jailed in connection with the incident in 2001, with Nagle receiving a five-year sentence. Veteran Sinn Féin activist Sean Kind was jailed for six years.

The Grove regime has been repeatedly criticised with claims that the IRA inmates wield an extraordinary amount of control over the compound. Last year, a photograph of four Sinn Féin TDs with those convicted in connection with Garda McCabe's killing appeared in the republican newspaper, An Phoblacht. The Prison Service subsequently announced a review of visiting arrangements would be carried out.