{"id":559702,"date":"2026-07-20T22:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T22:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559702\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T22:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T22:11:09","slug":"grainne-dillon-killer-challenges-refusal-to-be-transferred-to-portugal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559702\/","title":{"rendered":"Grainne Dillon killer challenges refusal to be transferred to Portugal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A man who murdered his colleague after stealing \u20ac3,000 from the hotel where they worked is challenging the State\u2019s refusal to transfer him to his native Portugal so he can tend to his ill mother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Paulo Nascimento was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/news\/life-sentence-for-callous-murder-of-hotel-trainee-1.350856\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/news\/life-sentence-for-callous-murder-of-hotel-trainee-1.350856\">given a life sentence<\/a> at the Central Criminal Court in 2003 after he pleaded guilty to the murder of Grainne Dillon (24) at the Jury\u2019s Inn Hotel, Steamboat Quay, Limerick in January 2002.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Nascimento was a night porter at the hotel when he stole \u20ac3,000 before using a shotgun to shoot Dillon, who was working as a trainee manager. An inquest into her death heard she had suffered two shotgun blasts to the right pelvic area and a third to the right breast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Represented by barrister Michael Lynn, with Julie Maher, instructed by solicitor James MacGuill, Nascimento submits to the High Court that he is currently on parole and has been living in Ireland since March 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He seeks an order from the High Court quashing the decision by the Parole Board refusing his transfer of sentence to Portugal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Portugal imposes a fixed sentence of 25 years for murder, as opposed to the mandatory life sentence with potential for parole in Ireland. The Parole Board here has refused to allow the transfer three times since 2006 because the Portuguese system does not allow for post-release monitoring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In a letter dated from last January, the Chief State Solicitor\u2019s Office said the Portuguese authorities have advised that if transferred, Nascimento would serve the adapted 25-year sentence, which would expire on January 5, 2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Minister stated that Nascimento would therefore be a \u201cfree man\u201d by January 2027 without any post-release supervision.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The letter states that should Nascimento be transferred, his parole order and its restrictions would be \u201coverturned and rendered null and void\u201d, undermining the work of the Irish Parole Board.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Nascimento seeks a declaration from the High Court that the Minister and the Parole Board are not entitled to refuse transfer without due regard to his rights and individual circumstances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Nascimento\u2019s legal team submits that the Minister failed to give weight to their client\u2019s status as an EU citizen being \u201cbarred from visiting his home country, reuniting with his family and accessing his language and community\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cAs a consequence, the applicant has been left in a position where he has not been given any hope of transfer and is facing an indefinite period of being required to reside in Ireland notwithstanding that Portugal is his home, his primary language is Portuguese, and his sole family and personal links are in Portugal,\u201d it is submitted.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It is also submitted that Nascimento\u2019s mother, his closest living relative, is too sick and elderly to travel to Ireland. Nascimento also seeks a declaration that the Parole Board unlawfully fettered its discretion by applying a de facto policy that persons released on parole must reside within the State for two years without regard to the applicant\u2019s particular individual circumstances, regarding the support Nascimento could give to his mother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At the High Court on Monday, Judge Mary Rose Gearty granted leave to challenge the refusal and adjourned the matter to November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who murdered his colleague after stealing \u20ac3,000 from the hotel where they worked is challenging the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-559702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}