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http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=99836152&p=99837xz4&n=99837030Earlier tonight another TD who visited Mr Higgins in prison said the prisoner did not regret his action.
Labour’s Joe Costello said that Joe Higgins was “in very good form” and was drawing up a schedule for his jail term.
Mr Costello said: “He feels that he has acted in a principled fashion and he had indicated all along that he was opposing the bin charges.
“He feels that he has no choice but to continue and to do his time in prison.”
He said Higgins believed the sentence was far too harsh.
“He obviously has no criminal record and he had felt that it was inappropriate, that a sentence of that harshness would have been imposed in the first instance,” he said.
The other prisoners had been very helpful and understanding, and Mr Higgins believed he was getting on well with them.
He also told Mr Costello that he hoped to lose a stone in weight by exercising during the jail term.
Clare Daly, who is being held in the women’s section of Mountjoy, was also “in great form“.
Mr Costello said, however, that she was worried about the impact of the imprisonment on her three-year-old child.
“She obviously wasn’t expecting that she would be in for that period of time,” he added.
The Labour leader said that although he did not agree with the form of protest - whereby campaigners physically blocked bin lorries – he was against the waste charge and supported the pair.
ps there were more than 2,000 people there - police say 2,500, organisers say 5,000... the reality is probably somewhere in the middle