Results 9,001-9,020 of 16,849 for speaker:Dermot Ahern

Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2009: Second Stage (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." I am pleased to have this opportunity to introduce the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2009 to the House. The Bill contains a range of different measures which it is appropriate to address by way of legislation at this time to further improve the overall criminal justice system and update existing statutes in some areas...

Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2009: Second Stage (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I will deal with that. In the wake of my announcement in November last I received a number of representations, both for and against the handgun ban, but I especially note the endorsement by the chief inspector of the Garda Síochána Inspectorate who draws on her own very considerable experience of policing in the United States. She was quoted as saying that many guns used in the commission...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I propose to take the questions together. There is no question of not proceeding with a prison development at Thornton Hall. The rationale for replacing the Mountjoy Prison complex has been well set out, fully accepted by the Government and acknowledged in the House, including by the Taoiseach this morning. Today, more than 1,100 prisoners are being held in cramped conditions in the Mountjoy...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I do not accept the Deputy's suggestion that this is not a long-term project. It was always intended to be a long-term project.

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: One does not provide potentially 2,200 prison spaces for the next year or two. The project was always intended to be what Mountjoy Prison was when it was built, namely, a prison for the next 100 years. Thornton Hall will be the most modern prison in the world when it is built. The Government will not resile from its plans. As I stated, the overall costs to date are €41.6 million. Site...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: The optimum prison capacity is for 400 or more prisoners. In the past ten or 12 years, the Irish Prison Service has sought to concentrate resources on larger prisons rather than having prisons spread throughout the country. It was €29.9 million on the site and €1.3 million in additional costs - €31.2 million. On the value of the site, it is interesting to note that a local auctioneer...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: There has been much discussion in this House, at the Committee of Public Accounts and elsewhere on the purchase of the site. The Irish Prison Service could have gone under the counter and not admitted the purchase price of this site. The prison service could have engaged an auctioneer to work on its behalf and buy the land, without being open and transparent. However, it genuinely felt...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: -----adjacent to the M2, the M1 and the M3.

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: It is a site that, despite what Deputy Rabbitte stated on radio this morning, is in a rural area, and that is contiguous to Dublin, to the populations and to all of the major routes in and out of Dublin on the north side.

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: 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....

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: We are not builders. We are a sovereign Government. This is a sovereign Oireachtas and we must behave in a transparent manner.

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: If we went around surreptitiously getting agents to buy land on our behalf, I would hazard a guess - I hear what the Deputies say and that is their modus operandi - that the minute we did that and it was found out that this was for a prison, this House would be in convulsions from people coming in stating that we acted in a sly and underhand way, and were not being open and transparent with...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I heard it was in the region of €23 million. That was purchased by the OPW in the context of a future development of the Mountjoy site for housing, for retail and to make it a centre of excellence in the middle of, originally, what was a reasonably depressed area because of the presence of the prison. That was something to enhance that area. The intention is, as the Taoiseach stated, to...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: I go back to the point made. The preferred bidder was accepted on the basis of a particular price. In the intervening period, particularly in the context of the global financial turmoil and the difficulty in getting finance, it was accepted that the cost of financing this and another project would increase. On the reason the negotiations collapsed, as I stated many times in this House, I...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: For example, look at the other infrastructural projects being carried out by Government, particularly in the education sector where the Department of Education and Science is re-tendering school projects. There is one in my constituency where the prices have come in 10% to 20% under what was originally indicated two or three years ago. Given that this project, and the way it was framed in...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: Regarding the last point on the value of the lands, the decrease in Dundrum's land prices has been less than elsewhere. A site in Dundrum will always be a substantial asset. As the Deputy knows, the original intention was to move the Central Mental Hospital to Thornton Hall and to keep it separate from the prison with its own entrance, although still on the overall site. Extra land was...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: It was agreed in principle. The decision was for the HSE and the Department of Health and Children. While it may need to revert to the Government, the position remains as it was yesterday in that respect.

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: Which Bill was that?

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: Regarding the Fines Bill, we will change the law in every way possible to avoid imprisonment as a last resort for the non-payment of fines. No matter what legislation we pass in this respect, though, imprisonment must be the ultimate solution if people ignore fines completely. From my practice as a solicitor of many years, there are many opportunities for people to pay fines. Hurdles must...

Prison Building Programme. (20 May 2009)

Dermot Ahern: To the best of my recollection, approximately 4,000 people are in prison at any one time, some 0.4% of whom are there for the non-payment of fines. They have refused every exhortation and have probably been obstinate in paying the fines. They are not there because of an inability to pay. Rather, they have adopted a principled position to go to prison instead of paying the fines. We cannot...