PATRICK Kelly, the gravely ill IRA prisoner, is expected to be transferred to Portlaoise prison
This follows a transfer warrant granted by the High Court yesterday, the technicality required to enable his sentence to be enforced in this jurisdiction.
Kelly, who is suffering from skin cancer, will become the second prisoner to be transferred to this State since the European Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons came into operation last November. He is the first from the UK to be transferred to a jail in the Republic. Eighty six other prisoners are transfers from Britain.
Government sources indicated night that the next step in the case would be to inform the British Home Secretary, Mr Michael Howard, that the legal paperwork had been completed. "We will be seeking his transfer as soon as possible," they added.
The Minister for Justice, Mrs Owen, said yesterday that "there is no question at the moment of me indicating that I am going to release Paddy Kelly".
"He will be treated like any other prisoner when he comes back into my jurisdiction, and if he has medical problems, which he clearly has, then I am entitled to seek a medical report for myself. The medical reports that have been done up to now obviously have been done in another jurisdiction.
Asked if she planned to seek a medical report for Kelly, the Minister said that she would decide when he was transferred here. She would have full jurisdiction over the management of his sentence.
"Kelly's repatriation has been agreed on the basis that there is no significant risk that he would receive a substantial reduction in time to serve as a result," a Home Office spokesman said last night.
Welcoming the decision to transfer Kelly, the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, registered his disappointment that obtaining a simple humanitarian decision had taken so long.
The Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, urged the Home Office to implement its decision immediately.
