Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

-----and to do so on the basis of a proposal to be drawn up by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. The prison will meet the functionality and requirements of a prison in a way that will provide better value for money than that which is currently available under the existing arrangements and on the basis of the current design.

On the question of the development of Mountjoy, people opposed to Thornton Hall have held the view that Mountjoy Prison could be developed. As we know, it is a fully operational prison. It is not feasible to redevelop Mountjoy as a prison unless one were to find alternative location for the 1,100 people who are currently in the prison, and to bring them back following the redevelopment. That is not a feasible option. We are still committed, upon the completion of a new prison at Thornton Hall, to proceed with a development at the Mountjoy complex and to provide an excellent project there for the people of that area.

In respect to what is different now to what was the case previously, discussions were taking place at an official level between the Prison Service and the consortium. The Minister was not directly involved in those discussions. The invitation to negotiate was on foot of the tender which was accepted in January 2007. Therefore, a series of discussions had to take place in terms of lining up the finance, the cost of that finance, the financial package and to see whether there was a prospect within the rules of negotiating an acceptable outcome in terms of the financing of the project. That was not possible because it was complicated by the fact that the cost of financing such projects is more expensive in the aftermath of the financial and banking crisis we have seen in recent months than was the case previously.

The bottom line in any event was that based on legal advice and the proper way to proceed people would have been put on notice to put their final positions. Those that were put were considered and the Prison Service made a decision to end the negotiations with the preferred bidder. The Minister has indicated that a revised proposal will be submitted to the Government. I accept that will involve some delay as the project will not now proceed in the timely fashion one would have hoped because of the inability to find a sustainable financial package from the point of view of the State that would represent the value for money we would expect. Therefore, we will proceed in this way. Thornton Hall will be utilised for the purpose for which it was purchased. It was purchased in the main out of moneys from the prison estate itself, from the sale of 18 acres in Shanganagh for 150 acres in Thornton Hall.

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