Wife killer Joe O’Reilly would be doing “hard labour" instead of completing a university degree, were it up to the mother of his victim.

Rose Callaly was speaking exclusively to the Irish Mirror today after the revelation that O’Reilly, who is serving a life sentence for the murder of her daughter Rachel , recently completed an open university business degree behind bars.

It is understood the remorseless killer, who is once again set to go before the Parole Board later this year, completed the degree two months ago - and was given it in a small ceremony inside the Midlands Prison.

The move is aimed at aiding the killer in his upcoming bid for parole - with it being 20 years next year since he was jailed for life.

However, speaking today, Rose said she ultimately doesn’t care if her daughter’s killer becomes a millionaire in prison - so long as he still never gains freedom.

“If I’m being honest in my heart I’m delighted for him that he can get what he likes.

I don’t begrudge him anything he has but I begrudge him his freedom.

That’s the only thing.

I don’t care what happens and if he has a world famous job inside the prison once he has no freedom,” she said.

However Rose admits that if she were in charge O’Reilly would never even have had the opportunity to do a university course in the first place.

“They should give the likes of him hard labour.

I wouldn’t be letting them have degrees as well.

People might think what am I saying but I’d have them in shackles and then maybe they might think twice.

But that’s never going to happen,” Rose said.

“But to be honest your opinion changes dramatically when it is your child and you have first hand knowledge of what was done to them and then to have to meet up with him in the minutes after I found her - he is just so conniving,” she added.

Evil O'Reilly bludgeoned his wife Rachel to death at their home in Naul, Co Dublin on October 4, 2004.

He left her there for her horrified mother to find.

He also later brought Rose and her father Jim into the bedroom where he had killed her - and callously re-enacted what he claimed the killer (who he claimed was an intruder) might have done to her.

To this day the heartbroken mother, who lost her husband and Rachel’s father Jim two years ago, says she vividly remembers those....