Eamon Ó Cuív’s visits to republican prisoners, including Jonathan Dowdall, “come from a good place”, Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys has said.
She defended her Government colleague on Wednesday, saying that he did not realise Dowdall had been involved in the Regency Hotel murder when he met him.
As revealed in the Irish Mirror, Mr Ó Cuív, 72, visited Dowdall in the final weeks of his eight-year sentence for falsely detaining a businessman and waterboarding him in his house.
