The building contractor at Clover Hill remand prison in Dublin has given a commitment that all technical defects will be rectified by next week.
John Sisk and Sons is the contractor for the £26 million prison, which has experienced problems with its security and fire-detection systems.
It was opened by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, in June, and prisoners were expected to be accepted during the summer, but technical problems have prevented this.
The managing director of Sisk and Sons, Mr Tom Costello, said that meetings with specialist subcontractors took place over the weekend and these companies had given a commitment to have the necessary repairs completed by Monday of the next week.
Mr Costello conceded that some blame attached to his company, but it had experienced genuine difficulties in getting the state-of-the art systems to work smoothly. "It is a huge project and there have been some setbacks, but we are now confident they can be sorted out. Everyone is working flat out to have things put right," he said.
The company won the contract for Clover Hill in June 1997 and had been happy with the evolution of the project, he said. But the fire-detection system had been causing problems, with sprinklers going off when no fires were detected.
He said the company had been attempting to eliminate the problems over the past six to eight weeks and would be stepping up work at the site after weekend meetings with the Prisons Service and the Office of Public Works (OPW), which are the co-signatories of the contract.
The director-general of the Prisons Service, Mr Sean Aylward, said he was confident the defects would be remedied soon. He had held several meetings at the weekend with the contractor and had expressed certain concerns. However, after a latenight meeting on Sunday commitments had been given and work had begun early yesterday morning.
He wanted to get the prison commissioned as soon as possible because overcrowding was particularly bad at Mountjoy.
The delays in accepting prisoners would not add "a single penny" to the overall cost of the project. He declined to give a date for acceptance of the first prisoners at Clover Hill. "We will not be moving a load of prisoners in one go. We will do it gradually", he said.
A spokesman for the Minister for Justice said he had been informed after the series of weekend meetings that the project was back on track and the defects were being dealt with. He said daily meetings would take place on the site between officials from Sisk and Sons and the OPW.
Clover Hill is beside Wheat field prison in Ballyfermot and has accommodation for more than 400 remand prisoners. It is laid out in two five-storey blocks and includes a special assessment unit.
The new women's prison at Mountjoy has experienced fire-regulation problems, but a spokesman for the Prisons Service said these were not too serious and should be resolved within days. This new prison will accommodate 80 inmates.