Mr. Jimmy Martin:

As part of the assessment by the interim prison board one of the options was to look at refurbishing Mountjoy Prison. An engineering feasibility report was commissioned and was delivered in February 2003. It strongly recommended against investing money in Mountjoy Prison on the basis that it would be lost money because Mountjoy Prison would have needed serious refurbishment if it was to be sustainable in the long term. The fabric of the building is over 160 years old and was in such bad condition that it would need serious renovation. If money was invested to install in-cell sanitation it would have required further investment in another five years, so that was not considered to be a permanent solution nor would it have addressed the other issues.

While the most obvious concern was in-cell sanitation, there was the equally serious matter of overcrowding. We had two or three prisoners in one person cells. And as the director general has explained, it has only been possible to address those aspects and tackle the refurbishment since those figures came down. There was an engineering report that recommended against it. The interim board thought a greenfield site was the more obvious route. It is not true to say there was no analysis of the requirements. Part of the PPP process is that a detailed cost benefit analysis is required for each project and that was done in 2006. It looked at the costs of all the options and it identified the green field site as the most cost effective option. It was on that basis that the decision was made to go ahead with the PPP.

The Deputy asked about the changing shape of the project. The Deputy is correct in that the original project looked at by governor Lonergan and his team was for the replacement of one prison on one site. It was not a long term project. One of the reasons for the choice of the greenfield option was that in addition to improving on what was available in Mountjoy Prison it also allowed for long-term development. However, at that stage in 2003-04 there was no concrete idea of what was meant by long-term development. It was felt that more could be done with more space. When the site was identified then the requirements potential was identified. In 2005 prison numbers started to increase exponentially and at that stage, before the PPP tender was started, it was decided to build a prison with 1400 cells, some of which could be doubled up. That was included in the outline business case which looked at all the options. It was on that basis the Government approved the issuing of a tender and approved the PPP process for the preferred tenderer. The Deputy is correct that in 2001 the thinking had changed and it had not really solidified until 2005 when a site was chosen and there was concrete proposals for the particular type and size of prison required.