Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

One does not provide potentially 2,200 prison spaces for the next year or two. The project was always intended to be what Mountjoy Prison was when it was built, namely, a prison for the next 100 years. Thornton Hall will be the most modern prison in the world when it is built. The Government will not resile from its plans.

As I stated, the overall costs to date are €41.6 million. Site acquisition costs, which amounted to €29.9 million, were effectively met from the sale of lands at Shanganagh Prison. As the Taoiseach noted this morning, we made effective use of the prison building suite to get rid of prisons which had become obsolete. In the case of Shanganagh Prison, a cohort of prisoners was not available to serve sentences in an open prison designed for juvenile offenders.

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