Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Second, nobody is in a position to point to any land suitable for a prison at that distance from or nearer to the city of Dublin which has sold or changed hands for a lesser price. Third, the Comptroller and Auditor General did not say €15 million was wasted. He said — let us be clear about it — that if I had agreed to secretly buy the land and not disclose the purpose for which I was purchasing it, to wait for an auction to take place and to spring this on some community without giving any consideration to what land was available and if I was to do a furtive purchase in those circumstances, I could have bought land in north Dublin for €100,000.

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