Opposition parties have raised questions about the €150,000 fee paid to a land agent that acted for the State in the €29.9 million purchase of a farm in north Dublin for the new prison to replace Mountjoy.
In January the Government announced it had bought a 150-acre farm at Thornton Hall, a farm four miles south of Ashbourne near the N2 and a proposed interchange for the M2 motorway. A price of €29.9 million was negotiated by CB Richard Ellis Gunne, which was paid €150,350 in connection with the purchase of the farm.
A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service said this payment was "an agreed fixed fee and was not related to the price paid for the site".
Representatives of the commercial property firm had been involved in the search for a possible site on behalf of the State from July 2004. Most of the work on the search was done by one employee.
The firm identified more than 30 potential sites, all but one of which were rejected by an interdepartmental committee as either too dear or unsuitable because of size or distance from Dublin.
A deal on one site, also near Ashbourne, was nearly completed by the agents in January but fell through at the last minute after the price of the site rose above €30 million.
The agent then struck a quick deal after identifying the Thornton site.
The site will be home to a new prison to replace Mountjoy, with the Central Mental Hospital likely to be relocated there as well.
The construction of the new facilities will be financed by the sale of the existing sites of both facilities, which could raise over €100 million.
Yesterday Fine Gael justice spokesman Jim O'Keeffe, who obtained the information through a Dáil question, said the fees of €150,000 seemed very high, and said he would be seeking information about the number of hours involved.
"There would have to have been an awful lot of work done for that fee," he said. "It seems very high indeed."
A spokesman for the prison service said the agent was selected by the Office of Public Works, one of the most experienced organisations in the State in terms of property dealings.
"It was a fixed fee and wasn't linked to the price of the site, so I think it's fair to say that it represents good value for the taxpayer," said the spokesman.
Mr O'Keeffe said there were further questions about other costs, such as engineering and site investigations that were not included in the fee, and whether these investigations were sufficient before the deal was completed.
He said the additional costs raised further questions about the value for money for the State in relation to the deal.