Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

On behalf of the people who participated in the selection procedure, all of whom are people of the highest integrity and public servants in this State and none of whom took direction from me, I reject the Deputy's suggestion that their activities stink to high heaven. I regard that as an unworthy charge against them and I refute it completely.

As I understand it, from the minutes that have been published, the group had selected a different site. The vendor of the different site decided he was not prepared to go on with the matter, for reasons best known to himself. To imply, as the Deputy did, that this purchase was one which was in the mind of the selection committee at all times and therefore that other tenderers were wasting their time is untrue. It is my understanding that a great variety of sites were on offer. One of the criteria foremost in the minds of the committee's members was the question of impacting on local communities. For that reason sites which were offered adjacent to built-up areas were rejected because they did not want to locate the prison in such communities.

If the Deputy looks in a fair-minded way at the records of the selection committee, which acted entirely independent of me and without direction from me and the way it went about its work, he will find it acted in a conscientious way. I therefore ask the Deputy to withdraw the implication of misbehaviour or corruption in saying that the committee's deliberations stink to high heaven.

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