An international consortium of technical consultants has been awarded the contract to provide the master plan for the new Mountjoy Prison in north Co Dublin, The Irish Times has learned.
The Irish Prison Service last week wrote to the consortium advising that its consultancy tender has been successful. The contracts for the work are due to be signed in coming days, and the appointment of the consultants will be formalised this week.
Construction of the prison is expected to begin in the first quarter of next year.
The identity of the consortium is unknown. Its bid was favoured over eight others from Ireland, the UK and US.
The successful group will provide a range of services, and will formulate the entire plan for the building of the prison.
It will formulate the plans on which building contractors will then be invited to tender for the construction. It will provide services relating to the design, construction, financing and maintenance of the prison.
These include:
Once the consultants have completed their work their plans will be put out to tender. Contractors will then submit estimates for the project. The outcome of that process is expected early next year, with construction to start before the end of March 2007.
The new prison will be located on a 150-acre site at Thornton Hall, Kilsallaghan, north Co Dublin, for which the Department of Justice paid €30 million last year. It will have the capacity to house over 1,000 inmates.
A programme of tree-planting has already begun around the site perimeter. An archaeological dig is also well advanced. It is expected that the archaeological significance, if any, of the site will be known by the middle of next month.
The prison, which is opposed by residents in the Kilsallaghan area and by some councillors on Fingal County Council, will replace the Mountjoy facility on Dublin's North Circular Road.
Around 850 inmates are currently incarcerated at the Mountjoy complex in the male prison, the female Dochas Centre and St Patrick's Institution, which houses young offenders.
Overcrowding has been a major issue in recent years. In the male prison up to four inmates are being housed in cells with no in-cell sanitation. Prisoners are forced to use chamber pots in the night and "slop out" each morning.
Some 400 inmates and former inmates are currently suing the prison service over this practice, claiming it violated their human rights. All cells will have in-cell sanitation in the new prison.
In the Dochas Centre overcrowding has become so acute in the last 18 months that some women with substantial portions of their sentences left have been released to make way for new prisoners.
The Irish Prison Service believes placing a preservation order on a house on the Thornton Hall lands will have no impact on its plans to build the prison. A spokesman said the house could be preserved in full without comprising the project.
