§ Rev. Ian PaisleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland if he will list the current life sentence prisoners who have served more than 14 years in prison, indicating whether they are loyalist or republican prisoners. [37208]
§ Sir John WheelerResponsibility for the subject in question has been delegated to the Prisons Agency under its chief executive, Mr. Alan Shannon. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from A. D. Shannon to Rev. Ian Paisley, dated 16 October 1995:
Sir John Wheeler has asked me to reply to your Parliamentary Question in which you have asked for a list of life sentence prisoners who have served more than 14½ years in prison, including whether they are loyalists or republican prisoners.
182WThe paramilitary affiliation of prisoners is recorded for prison management purposes, not for classification. In addition, it is not the policy of the Prison Service to disclose particulars pertaining to individual prisoners.
There are currently 25 life sentence prisoners who have served more than 14½ years in custody. They are broken down by perceived affiliation as follows:
- Loyalist: 15
- Republican: 7
- Others: 3
Of these 11 (7 loyalist and 4 republican) are already in possession of provisional release dates. They are currently involved at various stages of the Pre-release Scheme.