Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I reject the suggestions that this was a dodgy deal and stinks in any way and that the committee, comprising senior public servants, acted improperly. It is unworthy to suggest that about them without knowing any of the basic facts.

This acquisition will be fully investigated by the Committee of Public Accounts. The Accounting Officer and Secretary General of my Department, the director general of the Prison Service and the Commissioner of Public Works, who was involved in the acquisition, will fully defend their actions and will not be found to have been wanting. At one stage, the valuers who advised the Comptroller and Auditor General in his study came up with a comparator of agricultural land, but there was a "minor" problem in that it was located in Ardee, County Louth. This was one of the comparators used in their analysis of the situation.

I stand by the material that I have put into the public domain and the integrity of the officials who purchased the property. If I had gone to auctions, pretended not to be the State purchasing land for a prison and operated by stealth, Deputies would have been the first to ask why I did not advertise for suitable spaces or ask the landowners of north County Dublin whether there were more suitable places than the land bought.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh referred to a number of other properties considered by the committee, but he should know that some of them which were further from Dublin and had been zoned as agricultural have sold for more than €200,000 per acre. The closest adjacent property considered by the committee, which was adjacent to the motorway, would only have been available at a significantly higher price.

If anyone can point to a parcel of 150 acres that distance from O'Connell Street which has changed hands for less than €200,000 per acre in recent years, please do so. No one has come up with such an example.

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