Results 4,701-4,720 of 18,728 for speaker:Michael McDowell
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: I did not. The figure was 2,000.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: How can any rational person entertain such an approach? If Opposition Members want to talk about value for the taxpayer, let us look at the finances relating to Thornton. Its development costs will be a fraction of the cost of redeveloping Mountjoy Prison. The new prison development at Thornton Hall will be more cost effective to operate, have better facilities with room for expansion and...
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: When looking at the cost of developing Thornton Hall, one must take into account that Mountjoy Prison is old and inefficient and that the Prison Service estimates that by replacing it at Thornton, we will achieve operational savings of â¬30 million to â¬40 million per year. In addition, its cost is being funded in part by the sale of Shanganagh, which will eventually yield between â¬15...
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: That may be true and I will be glad if it proves to be so. When Deputy Costello has the courage to examine that place, justify its retention and say it is the correct environment in which to keep psychiatrically ill people, I will be glad to hear his arguments.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: There were not even television sets in the rooms when I visited yet those detained in Dundrum are mainly innocent of any criminal misdemeanour. If we are really interested in value for money we should have the Comptroller and Audit General examine the significant amounts of money wasted when Labour and Fine Gael were last in Government. The amount wasted on prison overtime alone because of...
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: I remember writing an article in 1995 for the Sunday Independent asking the last Fine Gael Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to deal with the overtime issue. Nothing was done. Diddly squat. Fine Gael and Labour were a disaster for the criminal justice system. Like a swarm of locusts, they left devastation in their wake.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: At a time when there was gross overcrowding and appalling conditions in our prisons, to the extent that the revolving door policy was operating at warp speed with prisoners being released shortly after they arrived, when one in five prisoners was out on temporary release, the rainbow Government, that slump coalition, cancelled plans to develop more prison capacity and cut back on expenditure...
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: That coalition chose populist and profligate policies which neglected law and order. Can it really be the same Labour and Fine Gael that presided over the revolving door syndrome who are now saying, as one of their number has said today, that we do not need a replacement for Mountjoy Prison?
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: Have those parties forgotten how they brought the criminal justice system to its knees? Let me remind them that when the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform tried to take action to alleviate the overcrowding that spawned the revolving door, her own Cabinet colleagues pulled the rug from under her feet. Opposition Members have short memories.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: As to the cost of the land, every person in Dublin knows one cannot purchase land suitable for future development in the Dublin area at farm land prices. I will conclude by making one further point.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: I am confident that in five or seven years, when the full campus at Thornton Hall is completed, the public will look back on these days and be grateful for the foresight and leadership the Government has shown in making a major investment on its behalf in the Prison Service.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: I am equally confident the public will look back with derision at Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's argument that Coolquay, at â¬320,000 per acre, represented value for money while Thornton Hall, at â¬199,000 per acre and just 2,500 yd. away, was a rip-off.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: Tonight's debate is a classic example of the politically bankrupt efforts of those who can do nothing and have never done anything but attack those who are doing something.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: There is no scandal here. Opposition Members have displayed nothing but opportunism combined with cluelessness. It is bad enough that it should come from Deputies Jim O'Keeffe and Costello but worse that they should find allies in some sections of the media, on whom we should have been able to rely to distinguish between truth and falsehood.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: Is there anything stigmatising about a person lying on the floor of a padded cell in a foetal position and dressed only in underwear? What did Deputy Neville's party ever do about padded cells? Absolutely nothing.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: Long on talk, no action.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: Does Deputy Neville know the rate of mental illness among prisoners?
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: Should there be a convenient psychiatric facility to deal with their illnesses?
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: The Opposition did nothing about that issue.
- Prison Building Programme: Motion. (28 Sep 2005)
Michael McDowell: I am doing something. I did not ask psychiatrists how to do the job. It is being done.