Fianna Fáil TD Éamon Ó Cuív has described his representations on behalf of a drug dealer convicted of manslaughter as “reasonable and proportionate”.

The former minister wrote to the Irish Prison Service on behalf of a Galway man who wanted to be moved from a high-security facility to an open prison. He was jailed in 2009 for the manslaughter of an associate whose body was put in a deep freezer for five years.

Mr Ó Cuív asked in July 2012 to be informed when a decision had been made on the application, which was refused in August that year.

Defending his actions, Mr Ó Cuív said he worked on different prison issues. He said he was satisfied that in the knowledge of the full circumstances involved, his representations were proportionate and reasonable and there was no question of an apology.

Niall Collins

The case emerged through a Freedom of Information request from a newspaper and follows the controversy involving the party’s justice spokesman Niall Collins, who wrote a letter to court for the sentencing hearing of a man convicted of drugs offences.

Mr Collins sought leniency for the defendant, who is the sole carer of his four children, whose mother died by suicide earlier this year.

Mr Ó Cuív said while prison sentences were a matter for the judiciary, the prison system was an executive issue and the Government had overall responsibility. The Galway West TD said that in the FoI response the Department of Justice had mistakenly not redacted the name of the prisoner convicted of manslaughter and he could not talk about the individual case but the man was near the end of his sentence and family matters were an issue.

Mr Ó Cuív rejected suggestions he had acted in a selfish interest to get votes. “The idea that writing three or four letters a year would get you elected – you need 12,000 votes and writing letters on prisoners would more likely lose you votes.” He said he thought very carefully about representations on a case-by-case basis and was very up-front about his prison work.

He said many people in the prison system did not have the capacity to write letters or deal with bureaucracy and “well-to-do” people could either do it for themselves or pay a lawyer to act on their behalf.