Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

As this is a long-term project, we have time to consider how we proceed. That would be to look again at the overall project, which was a super or large prison comprising 1,200 rooms. It may very well be that we will look, as the Taoiseach indicated this morning on Leaders' Questions, at perhaps phasing it in over time. Ultimately, we will build and finish a prison in the type of large scale envisaged in the original proposal. I do not know who mentioned a cost of €6 million, it was not Deputy Flanagan. I have not heard that before. Even if one got 150 acres of very good agricultural land in the west, I do not think one would buy it for €6 million.

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