Independent TDs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly face jail after they refused to pay a fine for breaching security at Shannon Airport

INDEPENDENT TDs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace expect to be jailed next month over a security breach at Shannon Airport.

Wallace, of Clontarf Road, Dublin, and Daly, of Elmwood Drive, Swords, north Dublin, were found guilty of entering a restricted zone in July last year in a failed attempt to inspect a US Hercules C-130 and another military plane.

The pair used a 12 foot rope ladder to scale the airport's perimeter fence, with Daly suffering cuts to two fingers and her lip in the climb.

The TDs were fined 2,000 euro each at Ennis District Court in April and given until the end of July to pay or serve a 30-day jail sentence.

At the time both vowed not to cough up.

It is understood the TDs have been in contact with gardai in Co Clare in recent weeks over the sentence.

Daly and Wallace were intercepted by airport security and subsequently arrested on July 22 last year after they made it onto a grass verge next to taxiway 11, on the Shannon Airport runway apron.

A US military Hercules C-130 was parked off a main runway at the time, along with another military plane.

A lunchtime flight from London Heathrow was making a final approach when the pair were detained and it landed without incident.

Several people have now been prosecuted for infringements at the airport over the last few years including anti-war activists Niall Farrell and 80-year-old Margaretta D'Arcy, a friend of President Michael D Higgins' wife Sabina.

Online Editors