Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

Tá áthas orm an deis labhartha seo a bheith agam. The Minister stated in his opening contribution that "the resolution was debated in detail in committee in both Houses". It was not debated in detail because there is very little detail. When I have raised this point, the Minister has said that the Prisons Act precludes details being disclosed. It does not. It only prevents disclosure of details which would prejudice security. I guarantee the Minister that within a few hours of prisoners being put on that new prison site, they will have more details about the layout of the prison than the architect who built it.

My point about details is that we do not at this stage have exact sizes, for example, the sizes of the kitchens or the rooms where prison staff will congregate, hold meetings and enjoy their time off. We do not have the ratio of accommodation to rehabilitation facilities and we do not know the size of the hospital, the health care wing of the prison, the washing facilities or the recreational facilities. None of this is available to us.

I am not looking for information on the thickness of the wall or the foundations. If others wish, they can seek that information. I want to make sure that what is being planned is the best prison possible, if it is to go ahead, but I am opposed to this type of prison going ahead. Given the way this legislation is structured, Deputies have a duty to act as a planning authority and also to act on behalf of the public to ensure we get value for money. If this planning application, which is what it is, were sent to a local authority, it would be rejected outright and declared invalid for containing no detail, or perhaps it would be referred back to the applicant for more information. An Bord Pleanála would have a field day if this came in front of it, and it would reject it. We in this House, however, are asked to debate and decide on something of which we only have a very brief outline sketch.

We needed and, even at this stage, we need more specifics with regard to the development as listed in the notice provided by the Minister. It is not good enough that we will not be given those specifics due to security considerations. Part of the concern of the local residents related to the height of the wall and the fact it was so close to their houses, yet an internal wall is the same height as the walls of new prisons being built in Britain. Also, there is a cordon sanitaire which is quite wide for this day and age considering the vast array of electronic surveillance which would cover that area, meaning it does not need to be as wide as it is. We know there will be eight blocks or separate prisons within a single prison, each with its own security, surrounding walls and so forth.

More details could have been given, not only to Members of this House but to the local community. Some of those details concern issues not covered by the development proposal but which should have been tied to it, such as the Garda station, for example, which requires planning permission. The planning application should have been submitted at this stage if the station is to appear at all. A new court house is required for a prison facility of this scale. The Minister has argued in the past that a new court house is not required, but if there is an incident in the prison and inmates are charged, they should be brought to court within the prison complex. However, that facility will not be available. The bus service is another issue of concern, as is the relocation of the Central Mental Hospital. There is no detail about the community building, which is nicely drawn in the development sketches.

What are the proposed standards for the visitor centre? Again, we have no detail on that but it is an important issue, especially considering the state of visitor facilities in various prisons in the country and the disgraceful way in which people were expected to sit in squalor while visiting their relatives. We deserve to know what standards will be applied to the visitor centre. I hope it will of a high standard, considering the extra journey the Minister will impose on families trying to support their relatives in prison and trying to encourage them to use the facilities of the prison to rehabilitate themselves. We do not know what training, rehabilitation and recreation facilities will be available to prisoners. How many high-dependency units will there be for prisoners who are at risk?

We do not know the answer to these questions, which illustrates the disgraceful and farcical nature of the approach taken by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform to this project, from start to finish. One needs only to look at the purchase of the site, all the skullduggery involved and the questions about which have never been answered. Now we have the secrecy around the actual plans. Why is there a plan to allow this prison to substantially increase the prison population? At the moment, the capacity of Mountjoy and its associated prisons is approximately 1,000 but the new prison at Thornton will be able to facilitate 2,200 prisoners. That in itself has consequences.

Does the prison have the capacity to deal with 2,200 prisoners, in terms of kitchens, recreation facilities, health care units, washing facilities and so forth? Will the Minister ensure that prison staffing levels are increased to deal with the contingency of having 2,200 inmates? Given the history of prisons, the very fact of being able to increase to that size means that the prison at Thornton will be filled to capacity and we will be back in this House in the future, seeking the development of more prisons. Instead, we should concentrate our efforts and the taxpayer's money on ensuring that those who can be rehabilitated within the community are, while those who need to be locked up are imprisoned in secure accommodation.

Will the Minister outline whether the Irish Prison Service and the Department examined the possibility of extending the Dóchas centre, given the excellence of that facility and the praise it has received, rather than moving it out into the beyonds, away from families and those who give support to its inmates? Most people dealing with prison policy would argue that smaller, self-contained prison units are more conducive to the good management of offenders and of the service itself but one of the Minister's predecessors closed a number of small prisons. Another aspect of concern regarding this development is the threat to imprison young people there if the facility at Lusk is not built. I ask that the Minister, even at this late stage, give a commitment that no prisoners under 18 years of age will be imprisoned at Thornton Hall and that until such time as the Lusk centre is completed, such prisoners will be housed in other appropriate accommodation and not in an adult prison.

There are other issues of concern we have not managed to tease out because at every stage in this process, the debate has been guillotined. We have not even dealt with prison policy but have only been able to deal with this specific application. The Minister has not addressed the concerns of local residents and the issues they raised. Their concerns are not even adequately reflected in the report of the rapporteur, in terms of the volume of submissions made and the enormous amount of work put into them. Not only does the rapporteur deal with two filing cabinets of submissions in a couple of hundred words, the Minister ignores them completely. That says it all regarding this process. It is a steamrolling exercise with the pretence of democratic accountability, of which there is none. It is a living disgrace that we have not been able to properly debate this matter, which is solely the fault of the Minister, who did not allow adequate time for debate nor supply the necessary details.

Another major concern, on which I do not have time to elaborate fully, is the privatisation of public services through the public private partnership process. That, in itself raises major questions about value for money. It has been proven in the area of education that public private partnership projects are 8% to 13% more expensive than the traditional funding methods for schools. The same will be true of this prison development.

I oppose this Bill and hope that, even at this late stage, the Minister will withdraw it and allow for proper investigation and scrutiny of the proposals.

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