A farm four miles from the one bought by the Government recently for nearly €30 million as a site for a new prison was sold yesterday for one-fifth of the price, despite being significantly larger.
The 240-acre Grange Farm in Kilbride, Ratoath, Co Meath, close to the proposed M3 motorway, was sold at auction in Navan yesterday for €6.2 million, or €26,000 an acre, by auctioneer Raymond Potterton.
The lands are in two parcels of 190 acres and 50 acres divided by a local road.
They were advertised as having "good road frontage and access, providing very attractive potential sites for a prestige residence".
In January, the Government paid €29.9 million for 150 acres, or just under €200,000 an acre, for Thornton Hall, a farm four miles south of Ashbourne near the N2 and a proposed interchange for the M2 motorway.
"This is confirmation, if we ever needed it, that the Minister has ripped off the taxpayers by signing up to purchase lands at almost eight times the price for a comparable farm today," Fine Gael TD Jim O'Keeffe said yesterday.
Thornton Hall was only purchased after the State failed to close a deal with the owners of other lands near Ashbourne, who had initially demanded €40 million for their property.
The Government last year was approached by 31 landowners - not including Richard Lynam of Thornton Hall - after it advertised for a site for a new prison to replace Mountjoy.
Defending the Thornton purchase, the Department of Justice said the State had to publicly advertise its interest in buying land "because it had to be above board".
Some of the other interested landowners had looked for €500,000 an acre.
"We engaged professional estate agents. They did not flag that there was any such land in the market [as the Kilbride farm]," a spokeswoman said.
Both farms were sold as agricultural lands and are not zoned for any form of development. The State, however, does not need planning permission to build a prison.
