INDEPENDENT TD Clare Daly was arrested for non-payment of a fine on Wednesday night, just hours after fellow independent deputy Mick Wallace was released from prison.
Ms Daly was arrested in Dublin and taken by gardaí to Limerick jail shortly before 9.15pm.
She was released less than two hours later.
Both TDs were arrested for failing to pay a €2,000 fine for breaching security at Shannon airport.
There had been speculation that Mr Wallace, who sparked a political storm with his allegations about the sale of Nama's northern portfolio, might have to spend Christmas in a cell after he was arrested by appointment at Dublin's Clontarf Garda Station and driven to Limerick Prison.
Arriving at the prison in an unmarked Garda car on Wednesday, Mr Wallace told waiting reporters that incarceration would not "be as bad for me as it is for the people in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan".
He was freed just after 4pm on Wednesday, having spent less than three hours in custody and been fingerprinted and photographed by prison staff.
Overcrowded conditions across the Republic's prison services mean that it is not unusual for fine defaulters to spend less than a day in jail before being freed.
The decision to release those convicted of minor offences is made at the discretion of the prison governor.
In April, Judge Patrick Durcan at Ennis District Court found Mr Wallace and Ms Daly guilty of breaching airport regulations by entering a restricted area at Shannon airport on July 22 last year during a protest against the US military's use of the facility as a stopover.
Speaking following his release on Wednesday, Mr Wallace said he will continue his campaign.
"Don’t worry, we will get in there [Shannon airport] again. It’s an absolute disgrace that the planes are not being searched and we will keep at this until the Government cops on to itself and stops allowing Shannon to be used as a military airbase to kill innocent people," he said.
