LATE NEWS

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 90, 16 April 1920, Page 8

LATE NEWS

HUNGER-STRIKERS

REASONS FOR RELEASE

SOME CONVICTED MEN ON

PAROLE,

fdKITBB Micas' ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.)

(AUSTHAUAN - MKW KCALAXD CADLE ASSOCIATION.)

(Received April 16, 2.30 p.m.)

LONDON, 15th April.

In the House of Commons, Mr. Bonar Law read a message from Viscount French, Viceroy of Ireland, stating that following the - precedent made in the case oT Alderman O'Brien, who was arrested on suspicion of being implicated in a conspiracy to murder loyai servants of the Crown> in Ireland, carried out a hunger-strike in prison and was sent to a nursing home, the Governor of Mountjoy Prißon in Dublin was authorised to liberate those prisoners awaiting trial or deportation whom the doctors" certified to be in imminent danger of death and requiring Ireatment which could not be given in prison. * Accordingly, sixty-six prisoners were released on parole for periods differing according to their particular cases.

Owing to a mistake on the part of the prison authorities, some of the sixty-six men released were convicted men serving sentences and who were not entitled to release on parole. He emphasised tho fact that this was not to form a precedent. ' Tha decision in regard to the ameliorative treatment was npt to be taken as a change in the Government's attitude; simply, the same course had been followed as in the. case of O'Brien. The-Government would be only too glad to change its Irish policy if conditions changed, but it must take every precaution to protect life.