THE SCALED-DOWN plan for a new prison, with an initial 400 cells, at the controversial Thornton Hall site announced yesterday has been attacked by Opposition parties as inadequate and lacking in credibility.
The project has already cost the State €42.4 million and Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said yesterday the Government had now decided on a phased approach whereby the prison would be constructed in three stages instead of all at the one time.
The Government gave its approval for the procurement of the first two blocks at the Thornton campus in north Dublin, which would provide 400 “high-grade” cells suitable to accommodate up to 700 prisoners by 2014. Mr Ahern said there would ultimately be 1,400 cells with a capacity for 2,200 prisoners.
“The previous Public Private Partnership (PPP) tender competition envisaged that the entire prison campus with all 1,400 cells would have been constructed as one job and no cells would have entered into operational service until the entire campus was complete and handed over to the Irish Prison Service,” he said.
“This phased approach will allow us to build the prison in stages and allows for an earlier opening of the first cells,” Mr Ahern added.
The contract to build the 1.5km access road at a cost of €2.6 million would be signed this week and the invitation to tender for the construction of the perimeter wall issued in September. Much of the cost so far was covered by the sale of Shanganagh prison.
A separate tender competition for the construction of the first 400 cells would be launched in early 2011 so that in line with the development consent process, work can commence on the main campus once the perimeter wall has been constructed.
“Going to tender for the work makes sense in an environment where construction costs have fallen significantly. It also will allow us deliver on badly needed prison spaces earlier than relying on a more protracted PPP timescale,” Mr Ahern said.
Expressing deep scepticism, Fine Gael justice spokesman Alan Shatter said the type of “money wasting and time delay” that had characterised the project from the start made it “difficult to believe any time-line or financial estimate this Government puts forward”.
“Over €42 million has been spent with almost nothing to show for it,” he said.
The project in north Co Dublin was started in 2005 but the tender for building it will not be put out until next year.
“According to the Minister it will be next year before the walls around the prison are completed and 2014 at the earliest before the first prison buildings are finished. No date has been given as to when the entire project will be finished,” Mr Shatter said.
Labour’s justice spokesman Pat Rabbitte said the Minister’s admission that no cells would be available until at least 2014, “confirms this project as one of the most expensive, misconceived and poorly planned in the history of the State”.
“All the fine design and promises are gone out the window as Mr Ahern now reverts to the traditional doubling-up in cells at a location that was never suitable for a prison,” he said.
“We know that a total of €42.24 million of taxpayers money has been spent on this project to date, including the astronomical €29.9m approved by Michael McDowell for the purchase of the site,” Mr Rabbitte said.
On the controversial question of “slopping out” in prisons, the Minister said the Thornton cells would have inbuilt sanitary facilities: “We are looking at a significant programme over the next two or three years to ensure slopping out as such is going to be a thing of the past.”
Irish Penal Reform Trust executive director Liam Herrick said it was originally suggested inmates would be housed in single cells but now 700 people would occupy just 400 cells under the new plans.
“That the prison is now to go ahead but already planning to double up indicates that the emphasis is not on improving conditions and regimes but merely increasing capacity,” Mr Herrick said.
