Cathal Byrne, who is an Irish citizen from Dublin, has been in prison in Kenya for the past 5 years. Cathal was convicted on a number of charges, including acquiring goods fraudently, working without a permit and overstaying his visa.

The Embassy, and previously the Honorary Consuls, have been providing consular assistance to Cathal over the years along with support from the Kilteagan Fathers and the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas.

Over the course of the last 5 years there has been a number of court cases and most recently Cathal had appealed his sentence to the High Court of Kenya, the ruling in June was that he could not just be released without paying compensation to those he defrauded and the Judge ruled that the figure would be two million shillings (KES2M) to be presented to the court by the 19th July. Cathal again appeared in court on 19th July saying that he could not raise the KES2M. and the Judge further ruled that he would change the amount to One Million Kenyan Shillings (KES1M.) to be paid to the Court on the 11th September 2017.

As Cathal does not have any personal funds we are asking the Irish Community in Kenya if they could assist in making a donation to this fund. A total of 1 million KES will have to be collected by the first week of September. Cathal’s family in Ireland are also willing to make a donation to the fund. Cathal will also endeavour to repay as much of this amount as possible.