Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I am extremely disappointed that the Green Party has failed to be present in the Chamber. I recall the public representative for Thornton, the current Minister for vegetables, making the most extreme promises to the various public meetings which were held by local residents and I recall Green Party candidates doing the same at that time. The Green Party manifesto declared that, " the Green Party will abolish plans to relocate Mountjoy to Thornton Hall and instead review options to refurbish and extend the present buildings". It is cowardly of the Minister of State, Deputy Trevor Sargent, not to be present in the Chamber to account for his complete U-turn and his ignoring of the obligations which he entered into, I assume with some honour, at the various public meetings in the run-up to the general election.

This proposal reflects the boom years of the Celtic tiger when the obsession of the previous Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, was with property speculation and the facilitation of that golden circle that seemed in those days to continuously surround Fianna Fáil. I have no doubt that the current move to bring forward this proposal at this time is very much linked to the recent stories about the preferred financial bidder, the developer who has walked away from three to five regeneration PPPs in Dublin city, three of which, I understand, have been subject to some kind of contract and two are to be subject to a preferred bidder status, as in this case. The Minister has a question to answer as to whether the preferred bidder status stands in the context of this developer walking away from commitments of up to €1.5 billion in Dublin city. Is the Government seeking to shore up the status of this particular developer by bringing forward and assuring his status with regard to this development? The decision to locate the women's prison — one of the few bright lights in penal reform — on this site is a disgrace. It is an insult to the successive women Deputies on all sides of the House who fought for penal reform with respect to women in prison and got it during the years of the Rainbow coalition Government, manifested in the Dóchas women's prison at the Mountjoy site, Dóchas being the Irish word for "hope".

The proposal to bring the Central Mental Hospital out to Thornton is particularly wrong. People in this hospital are patients rather than prisoners, although in some cases they have done horrific things and probably will have to remain in custody for the rest of their lives. This is regressive policy implementation at its very worst.

We are now in changed financial circumstances. The economics of this prison development no longer stand up. The Minister previously talked about being concerned by red cents, but he now has an opportunity to reconsider this grandiose, overblown and overpriced proposal. It is not in the interests of the financial future of this country. Neither is it in the interests of the rehabilitation of those who have committed crimes and their eventual re-entry into society.

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