– Alban Maginness, SDLP Justice Spokesperson
When we left Drogheda’s Bridge of Peace on Wednesday evening, another vigil for Brendan Lillis completed, agreeing to meet at the same spot the following week, none of us felt that Brendan’s release was imminent, the following day in fact. He had previously been moved from Maghaberry Prison to Belfast City Hospital where treatment for his condition, ankylosing spondylitis, could be administered by a health professional who sees in front of him a patient rather than a prisoner. So it was clear that the campaign was having an effect. Without street pressure and political lobbying the Justice Ministry would have kept Brendan Lillis hidden deep within the bowels of the British penal establishment, a statistic whose inevitable death would have meant nothing more than one less inmate on the day’s closing headcount.
