Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I wish to share time with Deputy Durkan. Last night, the Minister entered the House in his usual bullying manner. The targets were not only the unfortunate residents of the area in which he wants to locate his super prison complex but RTE and the role of investigative journalism. The Minister was annoyed because he received a telephone call from RTE concerning the programme just as he was pulling on his wellington boots to attend the ploughing championships. As a Member of this House, the Minister's hero, Dessie O'Malley, was to the forefront of those seeking an inquiry into the beef industry. In his report on that issue, Judge Hamilton noted that, if the questions had been answered in the Dáil, the kind of cost the taxpayer has had to endure in regard to that tribunal and inquiry and all the subsequent tribunals and inquiries would not have been necessary. Yet when polite inquiries are made of the Minister, Deputy McDowell, in regard to how the taxpayer will have to pay extraordinary amounts of money for his pet development we are told we are not entitled to ask questions. Those who ask questions or who seek to defend their local interest are impugned and investigative journalists are to be the subject of an official complaint to the RTE authority. I presume the same Minister will complain also about Eddie Hobbs to the RTE authority for having the temerity to ask about the public purse being ripped off over and again by an incompetent Government. The simple solution to the Minister's threat in regard to the RTE authority is to accede to the modest motion by Fine Gael and Labour to have the Comptroller and Auditor General, a competent authority and independent public servant protected by the Constitution, look at the murky goings on that led to the purchase of this site at approximately five times its estimated value.

Since the Progressive Democrats party became part of the current Government, it has had a policy of selling off State assets. The Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney, is giving private hospital lands to consultants. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, has already disposed of a number of prison sites and the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Parlon, is apparently selling and buying land in 70 different locations throughout the country. The Progressive Democrats party is in the business of buying and selling property in a big way. The real problem is that it has lost the run of itself.

In his contribution I heard Deputy O'Connor say Wheatfield is a model modern prison. I do not know how many times he has visited that prison. It is a modern prison but is he aware that many of its prisoners would prefer to go back to Mountjoy because the level of drug abuse in Wheatfield is so great? Families whose young people are sentenced to jail there are more terrified than in regard to Mountjoy of the eventual outcome if they are not already drug abusers. Of course the male wing of Mountjoy needs to be replaced but the Wheatfield Prison complex, overseen by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform at vast cost to the State and for which the Minister is responsible, is a disgrace in any modern country in terms of drug abuse. All that expenditure has led to a prison that is overrun with drugs.

The decision to close the women's prison, which cost €30 million to build, is a retrograde step in terms of Irish penal policy. There was a lobby for many years that women prisoners, many of whom come from the city centre, should be able to maintain contact with their families and, particularly, their children. The same regime should apply to male prisoners but in the case of women it has been seen as particularly necessary that this should happen. The women's prison which has gained plaudits around Europe will be transferred to a prison farm located on the far side of the M50 which has one bus service per day from Garristown and another home in the evening. That is the public transport provision.

The Minister chose to scoff at the environmental and archaeological heritage of the Killsallaghan, Rolestown and St. Margaret's area. I commend the work done by the various residents' associations and, particularly, by Dr. Mark Clinton, who is a recognised national expert on archaeology. The Minister may choose to believe there are no significant archaeological remains in the area. As with much of what he talks about, the Minister does not know what he is talking about. I declare an interest here in that I am a member of Fingal Walkers. I have had the pleasure of walking this site on many occasions in recent years. The breadth of archaeological heritage which exists in the area is of an extraordinary richness and variety. The Minister considers that because of the exemption in our planning laws in the area of security and prison facilities in the interests of the State that he is above and beyond planning legislation. Down the road the European Union and the courts will have something to say on that issue.

I shall give another familiar scenario. The Minister chooses a site and does not listen to any advice about its appropriateness or unsuitability, the environmental regulations are ignored and yet the time will come when the EU or the Irish courts will tap the Minister or his successor on the shoulder and say it cannot be done. The Minister chooses to ignore that risk.

Having been a member of Fingal County Council and having represented the area I wish to speak on the Fingal development plan. Fingal has two major towns and Meath has another major town within a short distance of the site. There is the whole Dublin 15 Blanchardstown-Castleknock area on one side, Ashbourne in Meath four or five miles away and Swords to the east. In the Fingal development plan this area was to remain properly as an agricultural area and its position in the development plan, in view of its archaeology, was to be enhanced and protected by the various planning mechanisms open under the planning laws. If there are 90,000 people in Blanchardstown and a projected 50,000 to 70,000 in Swords and a rapidly growing population in Ashbourne, what happens in regard to planning where we are meant to have agricultural green spaces, places for golf clubs, and places for leisure between our new towns?

If the prison complex is developed it is inevitable the area will be developed intensively. If this development went to a town such as Carlow, it would be the equivalent of three sugar factories. Carlow recently lost hundreds of jobs following the closure of the sugar factory. At least Carlow is on the railway line and people who want to visit would have some access. However, that issue does not appear to have been considered by the Minister. In his arrogance the Minister has decided that planning in the north county and Fingal area and in Meath is a meaningless process that he can decide to ignore.

We want sustainable communities in north and west County Dublin. The Minister does not visit the northside or the westside of the city often. He cannot give us sufficient members of the Garda Síochána to patrol Blanchardstown and Swords. Instead he wants to dump on the area and destroy any kind of strategic planning framework for the development of towns in the area and ride roughshod over the legacy of architecture, archaeology and heritage that exists in the area. I hope the courts and the European Union will take a longer term view of what sustainable, balanced planning and development should be in the area.

I turn to the issue of value for money. This prison site has already cost an extraordinary amount of money. The process by which the request for the prison site was advertised was truly extraordinary. I cannot understand the late intervention by which the site was parachuted in over a very short period to become the selected site at an absolutely extortionate price. The Minister can bluster and threaten RTE and other journalists all he likes but he has questions to answer because he carries responsibility for this. This is the man who gets a free run on Pat Kenny's radio show at almost any time.

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