McDowell defends purchase of €30m site for prison

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell defended the Government's purchase of a 150-acre site for €30 million in north Dublin for a new prison in the face of opposition claims of irregularities.

He said that he would complain to the RTÉ Authority about the manner in with the Prime Time television programme covered the issue.

"I want to make it clear that at no point during the year-long acquisition process for a replacement site for Mountjoy Prison was I ever offered any remotely suitable land at anything approximated to agricultural prices," said Mr McDowell.

"Only a very naive person would think that I would have been offered land at those values in the context of the publicly advertised process embarked upon by my department."

He claimed that Tuesday's Prime Time programme gave, and was deliberately calculated to give, a most misleading impression to the viewers as to the sequence of events and the substance of the transactions covered by the programme.

"I also regret that the overall effect of the programme was to convey a misleading impression that there was a departure from acceptable standards by the members of the site selection committee and their advisors," he added.

Mr McDowell added that the programme had furnished questions to his department on Tuesday at 2.50pm, when he was visiting a childcare facility in Cork prior to his visit to the National Ploughing Championships.

"It is self-evident that the film package on which the programme was based was already 'in the can'. I would remind the House that programme-makers in RTÉ , and everybody else in that organisation, are bound to be impartial in their treatment of current affairs."

The Minister was replying to a Fine Gael-Labour motion, moved in Private Member's time, that the Comptroller and Auditor General examine the matter. Deputies will vote on the motion today.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Jim O'Keeffe claimed that the site, at Thornton Hall, had clearly cost many millions of euro too much. "Several farms in the area sold recently for prices ranging from €19,000 per acre to €34,000 per acre, far short of the €200,000 paid by the Minister.

"The very most he should have paid for the land would be €6 million - now he must explain why he paid €24 million too much."

Labour justice spokesman Joe Costello said the purchase of the site was a mystery. Apart from the €30 million paid for the site, an estimated €40 million more was required to service it, and at least half a billion euro would be needed to build the prison.

The Minister said he had no doubt that the Comptroller and Auditor General would in due course undertake a formal review of the purchase, but he would not be party to a motion that implied the Comptroller would not of his own accord look into the transaction.

Mr McDowell said an advertisement had been placed in the national press inviting expressions of interest and, as a result, more than 30 sites were put forward and assessed.

Even including the totally unsuitable sites, the average price sought was of the order of €200,000 per acre, but some owners sought as much as €500,000 per acre. The selection process, he added, narrowed down to a small number of sites and ultimately to two.

One, said Mr McDowell, was a parcel of land between the N2 and the proposed M2 at Coolquay, Co Dublin. The bargaining process with the owner of that site eventually reduced the asking prices from €33 million to €31 million.

The owner of the lands was unwilling to dispose of them at the price unless he could be sure that a capital gains tax rate of 20 per cent would apply to their disposal rather than the higher rate of 40 per cent. Later, the vendor indicated he could not proceed with the sale.

A site at Balrath, Co Meath, was rejected as unsuitable.