The second of four IRA men convicted of killing Det Gda Jerry McCabe in 1996 was released from prison today.
Det Garda McCabe was shot dead during an attempted IRA raid on a post-office delivery van in Adare, Co Limerick.
Up to 15 shots were fired into Det Garda McCabe's car during the IRA ambush in which his colleague Ben O'Sullivan was seriously wounded
Jeremiah Sheehy was jailed for 12 years after pleading guilty to manslaughter and was being held in Castlerea Prison before being freed this morning.
A spokesman for Det Garda McCabe's widow Ann criticised the Government for not informing her of the impending release. "It is poor manners and a lack of courtesy from the Government. There are enough advisers and spin doctors and I cannot understand why they couldn't sent a one-line letter to Mrs McCabe officially informing her of the release."
The Department of Justice, however, insisted that the families of Det Garda McCabe and Det Garda O'Sullivan were, in fact, notified of Mr Sheehy's planned release.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform said that while he did not wish to enter into any controversy at a difficult time for the families of the victims, "in fact arrangements were made for members of the McCabe and O'Sullivan families to be notified by the gardaí over the weekend of the impending release and a member of each immediate family was so notified".
Fine Gael front bench spokesman Alan Shatter said the decision to release Mr Sheehy without notifying his widow was "appalling".
"Fine Gael recently published a Victims' Rights Bill which would have put an obligation on the State to ensure that Ann McCabe had advance knowledge of Jeremiah Sheehy's release from prison. Mrs McCabe would also have been entitled to make representations concerning any application by Jeremiah Sheehy for parole and release," he said.
Michael O'Neill, another of the four men convicted of the killing of Det Garda McCabe, was released from Castlerea Prison last May. Mr O'Neill, from Patrickswell, Co Limerick, had served eight years of his 11-year sentence.
Pearse McAuley, originally from Strabane, Co Tyrone, and Kevin Walsh, from Patrickswell, who also pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received 14-year sentences, are expected to be released within the next year.
In 2006, McAuley and Mr Sheehy lost a High Court bid for early release under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.