Madam, - There is much discussion today about value for money, and rightly so. The first question the new National Consumer Agency should ask the Government on behalf of the taxpayers is: Why is Michael McDowell building a new prison in the middle of a farm in north Co Dublin instead of continuing the refurbishment of the existing prisons, including Mountjoy, on which some €40 million has been invested in recent times?
The second question is another value for money one and closely connected to the first: Why is the taxpayer buying 150 acres of land for McDowell's proposed prison for €30 million when official figures from the CSO show that the average price of agricultural land would value this site at less than €5 million?
The third question asks itself: What's going on here? Does anybody know? - Yours, etc,
NESSA McNAMARA, The Ward, Co Dublin.