20 May 2004 Edition

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Ahern agreed to Castlerea release - Adams

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams clashed with Bertie Ahern on Tuesday, when he reiterated that in a one-to-one conversation during the Good Friday Agreement negotiations the Taoiseach agreed that the Castlerea prisoners would be released.

Ahern later claimed in the Dáil that the conversation hadn't taken place, saying that while he recalled Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness trying to have these prisoners included, he had refused. He said that if there had been agreement on the restoration of the Northern institutions last October, then that would have changed the situation.

Rejecting this denial, Adams said firmly: "I have told you what happened." He added that the Sinn Féin leadership could not have persuaded the IRA and its own supporters at the time, unless they had been sufficiently "assured that everybody was going to be released". Adams added that there was no clause in the Good Friday Agreement that excluded the men's release.


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