Prisoner Releases (Hansard, 12 July 1999)

§ Mr. Ingram

Table A lists the number of republican, loyalist and other prisoners who have been released during each month under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

Table A
	Republican	Loyalist	Others	Total
September 1998	28	33	1	62
October 1998	71	54	4	129
November 1998	12	8	2	22
December 1998	7	8	1	16
January 1999	2	6	0	8
February 1999	3	2	0	5
March 1999	7	4	0	11
April 1999	2	7	0	9
May 1999	2	3	1	6
June 1999	9	0	0	9
July 1999	0	0	0	0
Total	—	—	—	277

Table B shows that a total of 60 prisoners have been deemed to meet the requirements of the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act 1998 by the Sentence Review Commission and have been given Substantive Determinations with release dates up to end September 2000:

Table B
	Number
Republican	29
Loyalist	30
Others	1
Total	60

The 1998 Act also provides that, if circumstances

Specified	UDA	UVF	LVF	UFF	RHC	PIRA	INLA
HMP Maze	33	31	15	6	—	70	17
HMP Maghaberry	30	25	6	6	4	14	16
HMP Magilligan	14	7	—	1	—	6	4
YOC Hydebank	1	3	—	1	—	2	1
Total	78	66	21	14	4	92	38

Non-specified	CIRA
HMP Maze	—
HMP Maghaberry	4
HMP Magilligan	—
YOC Hydebank	1
Total	5

permit, prisoners with release dates falling after the second anniversary of the enactment of the Northern Ireland (Sentences) Act, who have served two years or more of their sentence, will be released on that anniversary. Table B does not include those prisoners with release dates beyond 30 September 2000.

As stated, the Act provides that a prisoner who has been granted a declaration shall not be permitted release before he has served two years of the sentence to which the declaration relates. A total of 4 prisoners who have been granted Substantive Determinations fall into this category. They will be required to remain in prison to serve two years of the sentence to which the declaration relates and in each case this will extend beyond September 2000.

The information provided for this written question is current at 1 July 1999.