Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Will the Deputy please stop interrupting me? I am answering his question. It should be clearly understood that we are hearing that Mountjoy Prison is a heritage site and that the Deputy wants to keep it as it is. I am not prepared to have modern penology and the rehabilitation of prisoners carried out in a museum. If the Deputy has some ulterior motive to keep Mountjoy Prison in its present location and to make bogus arguments about retaining it as a campus, I do not accept them. Mountjoy is not suitable as a major prison and must be replaced. That view is supported by the governor, Mr. Lonergan, and by every independent person who has toured the prison. There is no reason to rebuild on the site because, as I indicated in an earlier reply to the Deputy, it would cost over €400 million to rebuild a prison on the Mountjoy site. Even in that context, the biggest prison in Ireland would be unusable for a major portion of the construction period. I am not going down that road.

I want to make it clear to everyone who will listen that I am going ahead with the relocation of Mountjoy Prison from a city centre site to a site on the outskirts of Dublin and I have purchased a site for that purpose. The intention is that there will be recreational spaces, open spaces, decent buildings and decent facilities for the prison officers to work and the prisoners to exist.

See this speech in context