Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator Cassidy for his kind remarks. He sometimes has marathon battles with an unmentionable relative of mine but I assure him I do not harbour similar thoughts to hers with regard to the Senator. I know the Senator from the life I led before entering politics, during which he was very helpful and positive to me, which was most welcome.

I wish to speak on the resolution placed on the Order Paper under section 26(1) of the Prisons Act 2007 approving the development of a prison in the district electoral division of Kilsallaghan in the county of Fingal. This development is a major step forward for prisoners in the Dublin area. It will do away with slopping out in Mountjoy Prison, sub-standard accommodation and overcrowding and it will provide state-of-the-art prison accommodation and facilities for education, training and, most importantly, rehabilitation of offenders. The details of the proposal for a new prison development at Thornton Hall in Kilsallaghan were made public on 29 February 2007 as part of a public consultation process. All the relevant papers were formally laid before the House on 14 May and the draft resolution was submitted on 15 May. It was originally proposed to debate the resolution last week but, to facilitate the Opposition, it was agreed by the Government to defer the debate in both Houses to this week. It was also agreed to refer the resolution to a joint committee for further consideration next week.

The Prisons Act 2007 sets out a special procedure that may be applied for the purpose of determining whether consent should be granted to larger prison developments. Prior to the Prisons Act 2007, the procedure for all prison developments was determined in accordance with Part 9 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001. Under those regulations, the Minister of the day was effectively the deciding authority for planning matters for prisons and until the enactment of the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006 there was no statutory provision for an environmental impact assessment for a prison development. The purpose of the 2007 Act is to provide a more open and transparent mechanism for major prison developments under which an environmental impact assessment, EIA, meeting EC standards must be prepared and the Houses of the Oireachtas make the decision whether to grant development consent. This is done in the form of a resolution, which must be then confirmed by an Act. The confirming legislation can be presented to the House only after the appropriate resolution has been passed.

The initial stages of the process have been already progressed. On 29 May 2007, the provisions of Part 4 of the Prisons Act 2007 were applied to the proposed prison development in the district electoral division of Kilsallaghan. The main development is at the site of Thornton Hall in the townland of Thorntown although part of the development, mainly the access route, goes through adjoining townlands, all in the Kilsallaghan area. While the new development has not yet been given an official name, for the sake of convenience it is normally referred to as the development at Thornton Hall. On 29 February 2008, and in compliance with the Prisons Act 2007, public notice was given of the proposed prison development. Copies of the environmental impact assessment and visual representations of the proposed development were made available to the public and an invitation was extended to make observations and submissions on the matter to a rapporteur appointed by the previous Minister, former Deputy Michael McDowell, over a six week period which concluded at midnight on 11 April 2008.

The rapporteur received 130 submissions and has produced his report which has been recently published. The purpose of the report of the rapporteur is to identify those who have made submissions, to identify the main issues raised and to provide a summary of the submissions and observations received. Despite what some people have claimed, the rapporteur does not criticise the proposal in any way. Rather he summarises and reports what others have said and that is clear from the introduction to his report.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and his predecessor have had regard to both the environmental impact assessment and the report of the rapporteur in proposing the resolution before the House. The environmental impact assessment had previously identified several measures to mitigate the impact of the development on the environment and further mitigation measures are now proposed in the context of the resolution to address concerns raised during the public consultation process. In addition to the report of the rapporteur, an electronic copy of all the submissions received has also been made available in the Library for the convenience of any Member who wishes to examine the original submissions.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform set down in a document on 14 May his observations, pursuant to section 26(3) of the Prisons Act 2007, on the environmental impact assessment and rapporteur's report. The document addresses each detailed point raised in the report and sets out the Minister's observations on it.

The proposed development comprises eight separate and distinct institutions designed to hold a total of 1,400 prisoners on a single site of approximately 120 acres enclosed within a single perimeter with centralised stores, work training, educational and library facilities and visitor facilities. All the buildings except the control centre will be two stories or less. The existing boundary hedgerows are being maintained. Inside this area there will be a planted area ten to 20 m in depth, then a fence, a patrol road and a wall approximately 7 m in height. Inside the wall is the cordon sanitaire which will be generally 40 m in depth before the internal fencing of the development is reached. Car parking for visitors and staff is outside the perimeter wall. A dedicated public transport service to the development from the city centre will be provided for visitors. The floor area of the prison is approximately 140,000 square metres.

The development of the prison at Thornton Hall will be the single biggest step in improving standards for prisoners since the foundation of the State. The development's main purpose is to replace existing sub-standard accommodation and to allow greater capacity to avoid overcrowding. Advantages of the development include ending the practice of slopping out, which is a feature of life in the Mountjoy male prison, proper educational and rehabilitation services will be available, and the problems of overcrowding will be addressed. Addressing overcrowding will not simply involve a short-term fix; the design of the prison will address this problem for the long term. Cells are designed to be larger than normal in order that if there is a significant increase in the prison population, they can be sub-divided to provide for a greater number of inmates. The development will also mean that instead of housing more than 990 prisoners on a 20 acre site, including 585 prisoners in one institution, we will have eight self-contained institutions with a total capacity of 1,400 prisoners on a 120 acre site. The largest institution will hold only 192 prisoners. The purpose of the design is to gain the maximum rehabilitative benefit from having a collection of small institutions, but to also maximise the operational benefits associated with larger prisons by having one perimeter wall and one central stores and maintenance service.

The construction of the new prison will also improve matters for the existing prisons in the Dublin area in that it will give greater flexibility to developing the other prisons. For example, it will allow younger male offenders to be located at Wheatfield Prison, which has the proper facilities for that age group. It may allow Wheatfield Prison to house only young male offenders and not mix categories of prisoner. The detention of persons under 18 years of age is no longer the responsibility of the Prison Service and the intention is to house all offenders under 18 in Oberstown. I expect new facilities at Oberstown to be available before the closure of Mountjoy Prison, but if for any reason they are not, there are contingency plans to keep the young males in question in a separate facility at Thornton Hall where they will have no interaction with adult prisoners pending completion of the necessary works at Oberstown. I emphasise this is a contingency plan and not a permanent arrangement.

The resolution is the consent required for the prison development at Thornton Hall to proceed. It represents the planning permission for the prison. The format of the resolution complies with section 26 of the Prisons Act 2007, including addressing the requirement to list the main measures taken to avoid, reduce or offset any possible significant adverse effects of the development on the environment. It also details some small, but for the people concerned potentially significant, alterations to the original proposals, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform made in response to concerns expressed during the public consultation process. It also sets out the conditions that are to be complied with in the construction of the prison. Although the resolution represents the planning permission, it must still be confirmed by legislation before it takes effect. If the necessary resolution is passed, the Minister will introduce a two section Bill to confirm the resolution and to give it statutory effect.

Prisons, by and large, do not have significant adverse impacts on the general environment. Nevertheless, the Prisons Act, 2007 takes a very proactive approach and requires an environmental impact assessment to be carried out in the case of every prison development that falls within its scope. Any large-scale development, whether it be a prison or housing estate will affect those living in the immediate proximity of the site and, therefore, some impact is likely. It is clear from the environmental impact assessment that the overall impact is not significant from a national or regional perspective. However, it is also true that a number of residents, particularly those adjoining the main site, will be affected. Considerable efforts have been made to minimise and mitigate the impact of the development. For example, there is extensive use of tree screening and as previously stated, all the buildings are of two stories in height or less except for the control centre which will be three stories in height. The environmental impact assessment goes into considerable detail on the mitigation measures proposed to minimise impact both during the construction and operational phase. Notwithstanding this, the public consultation process and the rapporteur's report identified specific concerns and further measures are being taken to address these issues which I will outline. From the outset, the major concern of the local residents has related to the possible use of the R130 road, a secondary route, as the main access route to the new development. The relevant section of the R130 is a straight stretch of road, approximately 1.5 km in length and it passes by a local national school. While the R130 could support the traffic required for the development, there were concerns expressed about the implications for the safety of local school children and its impact on the local community, particularly during the construction phase.

Recognising that these concerns were strongly held and in an effort to minimise the impact of the development on the local community, the Department arranged that additional lands should be purchased to construct a dedicated access road running from the former N2 main road, now the R135, direct to the main facility. Once the new access route has been constructed, complete with underpass, all traffic to the development will use it, thereby removing the necessity to avail of the R130 road. It had been intended to use the R130 in the initial phase of the development to allow the new access route to be completed as quickly as possible. However, in the light of submissions received by the rapporteur and in recognition of the fact that there were genuine concerns locally, it is now proposed that the construction of this new access route should be prioritised. No heavy construction vehicles will be allowed use the R130 road through Coolquay even during the construction of the access route itself. I hope this reassures local people and especially locals present in the House.