Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

The Government in which Deputy Ruairí Quinn was Minister for Finance decided not to build one prison space during its lifetime. When we came into office in 1997, we started a prison building programme and we have built 1,750 prison spaces since then. We will be opening another 200 prison spaces in Wheatfield Prison in the very near future. That is our record. We will then build another 300 prison spaces in a new complex in the Portlaoise-Midlands prisons. Those are the medium-term plans. The long-term project is the complex at Thornton Hall.

I was not directly involved in negotiating the purchase of the land at Thornton Hall.

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