It appeared that persons released from jail under the Belfast Agreement could not be returned to prison in this State if they breached the terms of their releases, Brian Hayes, Fine Gael leader in the House said.
The Government needed to look at this issue. There should be the same protections for the populace as applied in Northern Ireland.
Mr Hayes observed that the Northern Secretary of State had returned to prison a person named Kelly who had been convicted in connection with a bombing on the grounds that he had broken the terms of the licence under which he had been freed.
Martin Mansergh (FF), noted that the Taoiseach had decided to seek more information about the revocation of this particular licence. While few people would disagree with the principle involved, it was important that such decisions be adequately grounded and be open to some scrutiny. Otherwise, it would represent a very arbitrary power.
Maurice Hayes (Ind) said many people thought the grounds for revocation were "decidedly iffy". He was glad Mr Ahern had sought information about the grounds. "If he is not able to tell us what the grounds were, at least he could tell us that there were grounds. One gets a suspicion that it had more to do with political expediency than with security."
Meanwhile, leader of the House Mary O'Rourke said she believed it was a mark of foolishness for Government departments to give back unspent monies.
She was responding to Joe O'Toole (Ind) who said it was totally nonsensical that hundreds of millions of euros had not been "drawn down" by the Department of Education over an eight-year period. That was something that made a laugh out of the whole budgeting system that they as politicians spent much time dealing with each year, he added.
Mary Henry (Ind) said they could imagine how people felt when they saw €70 million of the health allocation had been returned to the Department of Finance when there was so much trouble in the health service.