Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I am speaking on behalf of my Labour Party colleague, Deputy Howlin, who would normally occupy this slot, just as the Minister of State is delivering a speech prepared for personal delivery by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, that wonderful oxymoronic departmental description that will disappear within eight weeks.

The Minister of State has no responsibility for this speech, nor do the officials beside him, but this attempt to justify the Minister's curriculum vitae once again as holder of the justice portfolio is typical of the man who was never wrong in his life and never will be. The entire commentary about Thornton Hall, the waste of money where he paid twice the market price, suggesting justification for it, is another reflection of waste by this Government, particularly the Progressive Democrats who pride themselves on being economically aware.

The Minister is Tánaiste of a Government. He thinks aloud about market sentiment, suggesting there should be changes in stamp duty in October when he took over the leadership of his party in an internal coup. He created an expectation that the budget, into which as Tánaiste he would have some kind of input, would address the issue where over the period of the Government's five year tenure, the value and cost of houses rose by 75% while the yield from stamp duty went up by 243%. He created an expectation in the market that some adjustment, reasonable and rational, would have been delivered by the Minister for Finance but that was not to happen. Once again in the run up to the election he is trying to raise expectations. This comes from a party that lectures the rest of us about market economics and reality but what we really get is waste and unfulfilled expectations.

I respond in this manner because the Minister of State read such comments in his speech. We are not here to discuss the prison building programme or the wonderful record of my constituency colleague, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Perhaps his ruminations will be better suited to the Seanad, which he might grace after the next election.

The murder of Gary Douch was a tragedy that should not have taken place. We must deal with it and Mr. Mellett must be commended for the expeditious manner in which he prepared the report on the unfortunate events in question.

I accept the call by the Minister of State to be careful regarding what we say in this Chamber, notwithstanding privilege, lest we prejudice the outcome of any conclusions of Ms Gráinne McMorrow, SC. I particularly welcome the timetable and the deadline of 31 December. I wish that had been done in the context of other tribunals of inquiry ten years ago.

It has been said by a number of progressive commentators that the quality of a society can be measured by the way in which it incarcerates its citizens who go off-side. It comes as a surprise to me, because I am a great admirer of the United States, that there are now more prisoners there than there were in Stalin's Gulag Archipelago in the bad dark days of the Soviet Union. According to Mr. Lonergan, the governor of Mountjoy Prison, most, though not all, of the prisoners in that badly overcrowded Victorian prison with horrible conditions of slopping out and lack of in-cell sanitation have medical problems which resulted in their ending up there. If ever a class issue in this society could be put succinctly, it is in that context.

If a working class child in my constituency who has the condition known as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, becomes increasingly difficult in the classroom, is not psychologically assessed and does not get the attention of a special needs teacher or the necessary support system, as sure as night follows day that child will, through a series of misdemeanours and petty crime, be incarcerated in Mountjoy Prison, that academy of criminality. It is only middle class families who have the tenacity, self-belief and ability to navigate the system, to bang the drum, to get some kind of intervention so that their child does not end up in jail, and they do not always succeed. As recently as last night I met a woman who reported her medically afflicted son at a Garda station in my constituency and asked that he be incarcerated to bring him to his senses. That happened in Dundrum, but the institution in Dundrum is to be sold, along with St. Luke's Hospital, in order to maximise value.

We know how middle class families will get to Thornton Hall when they get beyond the M50. How will working class families get there? What bus will the daughters, partners or mothers of people who find themselves incarcerated in Thornton Hall get? What rapid rail system will take them out there? What footpath will they walk along when they leave the main road? What boy racer will avoid them as they walk along the winding twisting boreens of north Dublin to find this palace of imprisonment for which the Government paid more than twice the market value? I hope the Labour Party will be in a position to cancel that contract when we come into office.

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