Minister for Justice Michael McDowell has dismissed media reports in relation to a potential site for a new prison in north Dublin being sold for half the price of the land that was eventually acquired for the prison.
Mr McDowell said it was his understanding that the site in question - 120 aces at Corrstown which has been sold for €100,000 an acre - was "considered and rejected" by the committee that oversaw the purchase of the Thornton Hall site for the prison in north Dublin. "If it was unsuitable then, there's no point considering it now," he said.
Labour party finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said there was an urgent need for reform of the process of land acquisition by the State in the wake of a Sunday Business Post report that the Corrstown site, which was zoned for development, was sold for €100,000 an acre while the greenfield Thornton Hall site eventually bought for €200,000 an acre was zoned for agriculture.
The report also stated that while the Minister denied there were road access problems with the location chosen at Kilsallaghan, Mr McDowell confirmed in a Dáil reply that he was considering the purchase of additional property for access.
Mr McDowell said yesterday that there was sufficient access at Thornton Hall. The problem was that the local community did not want prison traffic going through the heart of their community. If there was another option, he would consider it, he said in an interview with Newstalk Radio. He said that when the "drug-ridden hell-hole that parts of Mountjoy are" was sold, it would realise €200 - €300 million and the taxpayer would not lose out.
Ms Burton said, however, that the whole episode over the purchase of Thornton Hall "shows the desperate need for reform of the land acquisitions process so that sites can be properly evaluated, with considerations such as access and other facilities being accounted for during the purchasing process".
Ms Burton said the State "acquired 50 acres more land than was needed at the excessive price of €200,000 per acre, and did not pay sufficient attention to secondary costs such as the developing access routes and public access to the site".
She said "the Minister refused to answer questions arising from genuine concerns that the site was unsuitable and overvalued and that locating a superprison in this rural location destroyed the possibility for strategic planning of development in the area".
