Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

If the Deputy listens he will hear the facts. On 13 January, Mr. Webster wrote to the vendors of Thornton Hall, on foot of his conversation with Mr. Byers, indicating the terms upon which the Irish Prison Service was willing to purchase their property and asking their solicitor to prepare the necessary contract documents to effect the transaction. I hope those dates are clear to everybody in the House.

On 18 January 2005 the site selection committee met to consider the site at Thornton Hall and decided to recommend its purchase to me as Minister. The site was evaluated according to the marking scheme applied to the other sites and awarded points according to the same criteria as applied to the other sites. It received 333 points according to those criteria, which was a tiny fraction more than the 330 points applied to the Coolquay site.

It is with regret that I say the "Prime Time" programme broadcast last night departed from acceptable standards of objectivity and professionalism in its treatment of this issue. In particular, no attempt was made to explain to the viewers that the Thornton Hall site was in fact one third cheaper per acre than the Coolquay site. This salient fact must have been apparent to the makers of the programme and I can think of no good reason it should have been concealed from the viewers but concealed it was. No attempt was made to inform the viewers about Mr. Dillon's other correspondence regarding another site which had previously been rejected by the selection committee.

While Thornton Hall was described in a tendentious way in the programme as "potentially rich in archaeology" no reference was made to the flooding potential of the lands at Coolquay. No reference was made to the sequence of events which involved Mr. Webster seeking approval from one of the Commissioners of Public Works to negotiate a deal but all of this was apparent from the documentation available to the programme makers. They had conducted extensive research under the Freedom of Information Act. They had all of this information available to present to the public, had they chosen to do so.

It was unambiguously and falsely stated that the vendor of Coolquay had changed his mind and Deputy Costello has picked up this point. He said he would make his site available again to the Irish Prison Service. That is not so. The letter of 14 January, the day after the letter was sent to the solicitors acting for the Thornton Hall vendors, makes it clear that he would, if he got a favourable decision, then decide what his strategy would be. It is entirely false to say he had changed his mind.

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