asked the Minister for Defence whether the prisoners in the internment camps in Tirchonaill are not now permitted to send or receive letters or parcels from their relatives and to ask what is the explanation for the non-receipt of letters since March 15th, by Mrs. Rose O'Donnell, Massinas, Creeslough, Tirchonaill, the wife of a prisoner interned in Finner Camps since March 12th, who, it is alleged, was ill and in hospital on or about March 15th.
CEISTEANNA—QUESTIONS. [ORAL ANSWERS.] - PRISONERS' LETTERS AND PARCELS.
also asked whether John Fitzharris and other Meath prisoners in Dundalk Jail have not been permitted to send or receive letters or parcels for several weeks prior to the 17th instant, and to ask what is the explanation for the return of a letter posted by P. Fitzharris to the prisoner John Fitzharris on April 9th, and returned per Returned Postal Packet, dated April 13th and delivered April 16th.
Letters and parcels in and out of Jails and internment camps containing political prisoners were stopped from about the 15th until the 29th March. On the latter date instructions were issued that prisoners should be allowed one letter in and one letter out per week and that parcels might be received freely, but that parcels out should be confined to clothing. There was a hitch in the application of these instructions in Tirchonaill and at Dundalk, but the matter has now been put right.