The Government is expected to sanction further releases of IRA prisoners as early as September if the IRA has refrained from armed activity, according to sources. The two men released from the IRA wing at Portlaoise Prison yesterday are regarded as very low-key figures.
One, Mr Gerard Burke, from School Street, Dublin, was imprisoned for his role in a robbery in Sandymount in 1994. He has already received temporary weekend releases and would have been freed by the end of this year although his official release date was July 1998.
The second man, Mr Thomas Flynn, from Cork, was serving a six-month sentence for an assault. He was already due for release in October this year.
It is understood the Government had intended to proceed with releases quickly after the IRA called its renewed ceasefire in mid-July.
However, the discovery by gardai that three senior IRA figures in Dublin intended raiding the AIB Bank Centre, in Ballsbridge, after the ceasefire was called caused the Government to put back its plans for early releases and to reduce the scale of them.
The robbery could have netted the IRA as much as £8 million and would have required the use of firearms.
It is understood that the Garda cautioned the Government against large-scale early releases partly because of the planned raid and partly because there are lingering suspicious that the IRA does not plan a long-term ceasefire.
During the last ceasefire the then Government embarked on a larger early-release scheme. Some 36 of the then 55 IRA inmates were released in the first year and the remainder were about to be transferred to minimum-security prison conditions when the IRA relaunched its campaign with the Canary Wharf bomb on February 8th last year.
During the first ceasefire the Garda resisted Government pressure to reduce the number of gardai at the Border by transferring officers to Dublin to help fight crime.
According to Government sources it is likely, in the initial stages at least, that the early-release programme will be slower than that of the first ceasefire.
There are about 40 prisoners in the IRA wing of Portlaoise, the State's main high-security prison. About half of these are sentenced prisoners, and of these several are coming close to completing their sentence. The other 20 are on remand, awaiting trial.
In a statement yesterday, the Government said it had decided to grant full early release to Mr Burke and Mr Flynn under legislation which provides the Government with the power of leniency.
The statement added: "The two prisoners will be released on the basis that they will keep the peace and be of good behaviour and that they will not, through publicity or otherwise, do anything which might cause annoyance or distress to any person or to the family or friends of any person, who may have been affected by the offences which led to their imprisonment."
The decision to release the two prisoners was taken at Cabinet on Tuesday, and no further releases will be considered until the Cabinet reconvenes after the holidays.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, yesterday declined to be interviewed about the releases. The question of further releases "will be kept under review", said a spokesman.
Sinn Fein has welcomed the releases, saying that the treatment and release of prisoners was "a critical part" of the peace process. Mr Martin Ferris, a Sinn Fein ardchomhairle member, said that the party was also pressing for the transfer of prisoners to prisons nearer their homes.