Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

The other options refer to other options at Thornton Hall and nowhere else on the building of a prison. The principal conclusion of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the purchase of the site was that if we had engaged an agent to acquire the site on our behalf without stating who we were and for what purpose it was intended, we would have acquired the site for a reduced price. At the time the prison service and my Department rejected that view on the grounds that Government agencies had to act in an open and transparent manner. To have proceeded in a covert manner would have left the Minister, the Department and the Government open to allegations that the State had acted illegally by acquiring agriculturally zoned lands at a particular price and then conferring a commercial advantage by means of legislation introduced to facilitate the prison development.

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