Gerry Adams asked Dublin government for preferential treatment for IRA prisoners soon after 1994 ceasefire Gerry Adams sought the release of IRA prisoners in 1994. Picture by Pat Maxwell 30 December, 2020 00:01
Sir John Chilcott
GERRY Adams privately asked the Dublin government to give preferential treatment to 11 IRA prisoners just days after the 1994 ceasefire, declassified files reveal.
A five-page confidential memo sent on September 19, 1994 detailing a meeting between NIO permanent secretary Sir John Chilcott and Timothy Dalton, a senior official in the Republic s Department of Justice, shows Dublin effectively negotiated with the IRA, which gave certain “undertakings” if prisoners were treated more favourably.
Sir John said that one of the main topics Mr Dalton wished to discuss was prisoners, telling the NIO official that “there would be a review of republican prisoners’ cases with a view to marginal easement in their earliest d