THE BRITISH prison service will inform Ms Roisin McAliskey this week whether she will be able to keep her baby in prison. Ms McAliskey, who is due to give birth in May, is awaiting extradition to Germany in connection with the IRA bombing of a British army base.
A spokesman for the prison service stressed that the welfare of Ms McAliskey's baby was its "number one priority" and that a decision on its future would be announced later this week following a meeting with social service officials and child care experts.
"Obviously a prison is not the best place to bring up a baby but, on the other, hand, the baby's needs to be with its mother have to be considered," he stated. "The welfare of this baby is our number one priority."
Ms McAliskey (25) is currently being held on remand as a Category A prisoner at Holloway prison in north London. She will be unable to use the mothers and baby unit at the jail because of her high risk security classification.
In Dublin yesterday, the British Labour MP, Mr Kevin McNamara, said the British prison director had informed him that Ms McAliskey's partner could be present at the birth.
Speaking at the meeting of the British Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body, Mr McNamara said Ms McAliskey had also requested two close relatives be allowed to attend. The hospital would have the final say on this, according to the prison service. Mr McNamara said he believed she would be sent to Wittington Hospital.
Wittington is about a 10 minute drive from Holloway, and a hospital spokeswoman said the hospital would have no difficulty having a number of people present at the birth "as long as the prison is in agreement".
Doctors at Holloway believe Ms McAliskey's baby will be born early, probably next month because of her poor health and difficulties with the pregnancy.
Although the British prison service has stated that Ms McAliskey will not be handcuffed during the birth, it is understood she will be under armed guard. She has also been told to choose her birthing partner from among the female prison officers.
The hospital spokeswoman said the prison authorities would liaise with the hospital security department over security arrangements. "Any woman who comes from the prison gets treated exactly the same as any other woman," she said. Generally, women prisoners are given an option to stay overnight or are discharged after six hours.
According to information received from the prison service, said Mr McNamara, Ms McAliskey had been strip searched 75 times up to February 16th because of her category A status.
At the same Dublin meeting, a Tory MP, Mr Hugh Dykes, called for Ms McAliskey to be moved from prison to "high grade" hospital care. Mr Dykes said that anything less, pending the extradition order, would be "outrageous and inhumane".
Mr Dykes also called for a new look at the Widgery report into Bloody Sunday, saying there was now a "strong possibility" of additional evidence being provided.
Extradition proceedings against Ms McAliskey are expected to begin on March 12th at the top security Belmarsh Magistrates' court in south east London. The German prosecutors believe she was one of a five member IRA gang which fired three mortar bombs at the British army barracks in Osnabruck last June. No one was injured in the attack.
Her solicitor, Ms Gareth Peirce, hopes to appeal against extradition in the House of Lords later this month, arguing that the German government is not entitled to ask for a British citizen to be extradited because it refuses to extradite its own citizens.