Seanad Report:Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform Michael McDowell said he agreed that private property rights were sometimes given far too much weight in relation to the public good.
The Minister was responding to comments by Martin Mansergh (FF), who said that while the courts once seemed to have a fairly robust notice of private property versus the public good, we now appeared to have arrived at a stage that if something was wanted for a public purpose it was worth tens if not hundreds of millions of euro.
There was something wrong about that, said Mr Mansergh, who added that he was probably not representing the views of many of his would-be constituents.
He thought that the Government and the legal profession needed to look at this. We had gone way off balance and this was one of the reasons why the Minister for Justice had encountered criticism over the purchase of a prison site in north Dublin. We had pushed the rights of private property beyond all notions of sanity. We needed to get back to a more sane view of the public good.
Introducing the Prisons Bill, the Minister said its main objectives were to provide for the possibility of certain prisoner escorts being contracted out, the closure of Mountjoy Prison, and the participation of prisoners in certain court hearings by video TV link.
Stressing his objective to bring about a drug-free regime in prisons, Mr McDowell said there could be no rehabilitation if hard drugs were present in our jails. The Irish Prison Service would shortly commence implementation of a new strategy of mandatory drug testing, addiction counselling and treatment as well as other measures to prevent drug usage.
Defending the price of almost €30 million for the site for the planned new prison complex at Thornton Farm, in north Dublin, Mr McDowell said that the five acres which had been retained by the owner had been priced at €1 million per acre by none other than Fine Gael frontbencher Jim O'Keeffe. Was anyone seriously suggesting that the remaining 150 acres could be purchased in its entirety for €6 million, he asked.
The Minister said the sale of the Mountjoy Prison site for anything up to €100 million would go a substantial way towards delivering a modern new prison campus with playing fields and other amenities.
Maurice Cummins (FG) asked why the Minister had rejected a call for an investigation to be carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General in relation to the purchase of the site for the new prison in north Dublin.
"I don't know what you are afraid of in that. If you are so doggedly pursuing this, you should have no fear from an investigation by the Comptroller."
Jim Walsh (FF) queried the attitude of sections of the public service. He said that general practitioners who were extremely well rewarded for sometimes spending only minutes with patients had obstructed the introduction of the doctor-only medical cards. This was regrettable, in his view.