Gilligan's island

Can John Gilligan reform the prison economy? Stranger things have happened!

Jason O'Toole, 16 Mar 2009

“It’s all because all the big boys paid themselves too much and gave bonuses to themselves for lending back money to each other,” he fumes.

If released, Gilligan says he would relish the opportunity to help quell the crisis in the banking sector. “I would fancy the chairman’s job at the Anglo Irish Bank. I would sort out the problems. To tell you the truth, that’s why I never had my money in the banks in the first place. I made a wise decision by not putting my money in the bank. I never trusted the banks and I was proved right on that one,” Gilligan writes.

Currently serving a massive 20-year sentence for allegedly masterminding a massive multimillion euro cannabis operation, the crime boss says he now wants to sit down with the authorities to discuss ways to dramatically slash Irish prison costs.

According to the latest figures, the average prisoner costs the taxpayers €267 a day to keep locked up – more than bed and breakfast at a five star hotel in Dublin. With his tongue firmly placed in his cheek, Gilligan says the most effective solution to ease the burden on the taxpayers would be to release inmates early.

“It’s costing a fortune. Honestly, this is a good idea for the country,” Gilligan maintains. “They won’t allow anybody out on TR (temporary release) because there’s uproar over it. But because everybody’s in a recession, people are now saying, ‘Well, I’m not paying my fecking tax to keep prisoners in jail. Sure, they don’t live around me. I don’t care about them! Blah blah!’ So, it’s a good time for prisoners to argue our points.”

Gilligan has been making the case to the authorities that certain male prisoners should be entitled to a third remission instead of the conventional 25%. As reported in Hot Press back in January, up until recently The Prison Act of 1947 – which amazingly was still legally valid until 2007 – stipulated that female prisoners were entitled to a third remission while a male inmate could only seek a reduction of quarter of his sentence for ‘good behaviour’.

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