A Fine Gael-led government will undertake a review of the Government's decision to build a controversial new prison at the €30 million Thornton Hall site in north county Dublin, according to the party's justice, equality and law spokesman.
However, Jim O'Keeffe TD said that, depending on the nature of the agreement reached under the proposed Public Private Partnership (PPP) deal, any such government may find itself tied to an "irrevocable" decision.
"The entire project will be reviewed by the next government," he told The Irish Times.
"That review will obviously have to take cognisance of the legal and other steps taken by the Government," Mr O'Keeffe said.
"It could be that commitments already entered into may be such that the process is already irrevocable," he added.
Mr O'Keeffe's comments followed an appearance by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell before the Select Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights yesterday, at which he said he expected to be in a position to announce the successful PPP tender for Thornton Hall within the next few weeks.
Mr McDowell stressed that an "extensive statutory process" would have to be followed once the successful tender for the PPP is announced.
The successful bidder for the project to design, build, finance and maintain the prison would have to go through this assessment process, as outlined in the relevant legislation, the Minister said.
"It is clearly conditional on all these steps taking place," he said.
Mr McDowell was appearing before the committee in relation to revised 2007 spending estimates for areas covered by his department.
Asked about Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's commitment at the recent Fianna Fáil Ardfheis to increase the number of gardaí by 2,000 to 16,000, Mr McDowell denied that he had been "trumped" by the Taoiseach on the issue.
Mr Ahern was correct in saying that there is a need for more gardaí, but the intention was not to increase the rate of recruiting, but rather to maintain the current rate of recruitment, he said.
Mr McDowell said recent reform of the system of land registration was helping to simplify the procedures for buying and selling land and reduce associated delays and extra costs.
Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy was aware that whatever resources were necessary to provide witness protection programmes to tackle organised crime would be provided by the Government.
However, witnesses were often unwilling to emigrate, while Ireland was too small a country for them to continue living here, Mr McDowell said.