Government TD Eamon O Cuiv paid a personal visit to convicted torturer Jonathan Dowdall in prison, we can reveal.
Mr O Cuiv, 72, visited Dowdall in the final weeks of his eight-year sentence for falsely detaining a businessman and waterboarding him in his house, just months before gardai charged him over the Regency Hotel murder of David Byrne.
But speaking to the Mirror before this article went to print, he said he would never have visited him if he’d known about his involvement in the Regency Hotel attack.
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The Fianna Fail TD said: “Of course I wouldn’t have [visited him] because I don’t deal with people who are involved in gangland. I would have had no reason to.”
But Mr O Cuiv accepted that he did see Dowdall in 2020 in what he says were the “final weeks” of his sentence for torturing a man. He did so in spite of Dowdall, 44, being widely condemned – even by his previous political party Sinn Fein – because he says the former politician had connections to republican prisoners that he visits in Portlaoise Prison.
Mr O Cuiv said: “I visit prisoners. I’ve often visited prisoners. There’s nothing unusual about that. I did visit Jonathan Dowdall but at that stage he was towards the end of a sentence for something totally different. Then subsequent events [occurred]. I wouldn’t have ever visited people involved in gangland. I do visit mainly Republican prisoners.
“I’ve been visiting since 1995 openly and in and around prisons and people who’ve been convicted of very serious offences. That’s something I’ve never hidden.”
Asked if in hindsight he now regrets meeting with Dowdall, who this month was jailed for four years for his role in facilitating the gangland murder of David Byrne in February 2016, Mr O’Cuiv said: “I’ll put it to you another way around.
“There wouldn’t have been any circumstances in light of what came out since, if that was known, there would have been no purpose for my visit.”
But when asked whether he was aware at the time of visiting Dowdall that he was under investigation over those links to Hutch and the Regency Hotel attack itself, Mr O’Cuiv said: “I wasn’t and I’m not sure that too many other people knew that. Because as I said he was getting prepared for release.
“He was imminently due for release before that charge reared its head. Not only did it take me by surprise but it took other people in authority by surprise.”
The prominent politician, who is the grandson of Eamon De Valera, continued: “We had a very mundane meeting, more about prison conditions, issues that he had in relation to education and so on, rebuilding his life.
“The conversation was in the context of post-release life if you understand me. It was more to do with issues he had in relation to preparing himself for release which included education etc.”
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