Castlerea Five campaign stepped up

BY JAY McCAULEY, CATHAOIRLEACH THE CASTLEREA FIVE CAMPAIGN SUPPORT GROUP

The Castlerea Five Campaign Support Group was set up in Strabane in November to demand that the Dublin government lives up to its responsibilities under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. We want it to stop holding the Castlerea Five as political hostages for domestic political reasons, while it sees fit to lecture others on the necessity of living up to the promises they undertook.

The continued incarceration of Pearse McCauley, Michael O'Neill, John Quinn, Jerry Sheehy and Kevin Walsh, in Castlerea Prison, Co Roscommon, leaves the Dublin government in complete contravention of its responsibilities under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

The case of the Castlerea Five is clear cut. The Good Friday Agreement covers all IRA prisoners imprisoned for incidents that occurred before 10 April 1998, regardless of the jurisdiction they were jailed in.

In the negotiations leading up to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Féin made it clear to the Dublin government that there could be no exceptions to or cherry picking on this issue.

The absence of any clause in the Good Friday Agreement excluding these particular prisoners is proof of how the negotiations closed.

Since the Good Friday Agreement was signed, a total of 429 prisoners have been released in the North and 45 have been released in the South. This includes people convicted of incidents that happened after the Adare robbery. The five men are the only prisoners convicted in relation to incidents that happened before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

The five prisoners are serving sentences in relation to the killing of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare on 7 June 1996. However, the men are habitually referred to as convicted murderers when in actual fact the four were convicted of manslaughter, the unlawful and unintentional killing of a person, and one man, John Quinn, was convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery. The fact that prisoners convicted of murder after this date have now been released demonstrates the Dublin government's double standards in relation to the prisoner issue.

We are mindful of the pain and suffering of the McCabe family and do not wish to add to that grief, in the same way that we are conscious of the pain for families in the north who have watched the release of prisoners here. However, it is unjust that the Castlerea Five have been singled out and judged as "prisoners apart", when it clear that they qualify under the terms of the Agreement.

In November, hundreds of people attended a protest march from Strabane to Lifford demanding the immediate release of the Castlerea Five. A petition to the same effect was launched in Strabane in December and the Campaign Support Group is now extending this petition throughout the country.

In the coming weeks and months, we will be holding more protests and producing literature to highlight the duplicity of the Dublin government, and through a letter writing campaign we will be seeking to secure the support of political representatives from all political parties who avow to support the Good Friday Agreement, of which the release of political prisoners is part.

Anyone requiring petition forms can contact Cairde, the Strabane Republican Ex-Prisoners Centre, 12a, Bridge Street, Strabane, Co Tyrone, BT82 9AE or telephone 028 71886824.