Killeen made appeals to help nine prisoners
MAEVE SHEEHAN
TWO weeks ago, Tony Killeen telephoned the Taoiseach to apologise for lobbying for concessions for two convicts. Their crimes were amongst the worst imaginable. Joseph Nugent was a child abuser who was serving six years for buggery and assault. Chris Cooney was serving life for the murder of Rob Lynch in a pub in Ennis in 1991. The revelation that Mr Killeen tried to ease the path of their release outraged not only those affected by their crimes but also the public at large.
So far, the junior minister at the Department of Enterprise & Employment has resisted calls for his resignation. He distanced himself from the letters. He claimed they were sent by constituency staff without his knowledge.
Former TD and Senator Madeleine Taylor-Quinn remarked that Tony Killeen's explanations "stretched the bounds of credibility".
This weekend, documents from the Department of Justice show that a paedophile and a murderer were not the only constituents to benefit from the assistance of their local Clare TD. The junior minister was also receptive to the tribulations of incarcerated drug dealers, thieves, armed robbers and, most surprisingly, a dissident republican terrorist, jailed for 10 years for possession of explosives.
Beginning in 2002, Mr Killeen or his constituency workers dispatched 17 letters making representations for nine convicted prisoners, according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act. Most bore the signature of Pat Daly, the Fianna Fail councillor who runs the junior minister's constituency office, or Michelle Scanlan, another office worker. When it emerged last week that Mr Killeen had sought temporary or early release for Chris Coonan, a defensive Mr Killeen told RTE: "I didn't sign the letter. I didn't see the letter. It was signed by my constituency secretary."
It only later emerged that there were, in fact, four such representations from Mr Killeen's office. And Pat Daly, who is paid by the State to run it, graciously took the blame. He insisted this weekend that the junior minister was "innocent in the whole situation".
One letter seeking leniency for Chris Cooney and dated April 2005 is signed 'Tony'. But Mr Killeen this weekend said the 'signature' was actually stamped on the letter. Mr Killeen may have the backing of his Taoiseach this weekend but the disclosure of the dossier of his prisoner representations means that he will face more questions.
The most surprising of his representations relate to Michael Hegarty, a dissident republican prisoner who was jailed for 10 years for possession of explosives. The Department of Justice logged two letters from Mr Killeen in June 2002 regarding the terrorist, who is not named in the correspondence.
Mr Killeen asked for the prisoner to be transferred from the high-security Portlaoise Prison to Castlerea open prison, because of a medical condition. Minister for Justice Michael McDowell refused: "I released [Mr Hegarty] due to his medical condition. The release was subject to a number of conditions by which he agreed to abide. However, he did not abide by these conditions and when the period of temporary release expired, I decided he would not be granted a further period."
Mr Hegarty, originally
ANALYSIS:
EMER O'KELLY, P24, GENE KERRIGAN, 36
from Clare, was a notorious member of the dissident republican group, the Continuity IRA. During his trial in 1997, Hegarty refused to recognise the Special Criminal Court and was sentenced to 10 years in jail. A few years after his incarceration, Hegarty fell ill and began an unsuccessful campaign for his early release.
Mr Killeen made successful representations for temporary release for a convicted drink driver.
In 2004 and 2005, his office took up the case of a man serving three years for robbery and public mischief. Mr Killeen's letter described the man as a model prisoner and asked for a transfer. A second letter was dispatched from Killeen's office in March 2005, asking Mr McDowell to "look favourably" on the prisoner's request for a transfer. Both were signed on Mr Killeen's behalf by Cllr Daly. In June 2005, the Justice Minister wrote that the prisoner had a previous conviction for a sexual offence, which went against his transfer.
The files also include a letter written by Mr Killeen on behalf of two constituents convicted of manslaughter, seeking their transfer to Loughan House Open Prison in Co Cavan. Mr McDowell refused. In 2004 and 2005, Mr Killeen made two representations to allow a convicted drug dealer serving a three-year sentence home to see his mother. The Justice Minister refused, "due to the serious nature of the offence".
Mr Killeen intervened more successfully on behalf a prisoner related to feuding Limerick gangsters. In September 2005, Mr Killeen sought the transfer to an open detention centre of a constituent, who was convicted of having a weapon and assault.
"His parents inform me that his life is in danger because he is a relation of a feuding family in Limerick," said the letter, which was signed by Pat Daly. A month later, the Minister replied: "You will be glad to know that [the prisoner] was transferred ".
Mr Killeen was by far the biggest canvasser for prisoners in his constituency in the past four years. Former minister Sile De Valera made two representations, one on behalf of a drug dealer and another for a constituent convicted of assault. James Breen, the Independent TD and Timmy Dooley, the Senator, made one each. Breen asked the minister to consider the case of a convicted burglar, a diabetic, whose needles were being hijacked by heroin-addicted prisoners. Dooley's request concerned the transfer of a prisoner convicted of assault and possession of a weapon.
Wading in to help those on the wrong side of the law may win votes from the prisoners' families but, as Bobby Molloy has found to his cost, it can make for political suicide. Five years ago, the then PD junior minister resigned after it emerged that he made inquiries on behalf of a Galway paedophile. Mr Killeen stayed silent about his own interventions last year when his constituency colleague, Pat Breen, was attacked for tabling a Dail question about a paedophile. Now it's Mr Killeen's turn.
