Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

The Government has spent approximately €40 million on a site, including design and planning, for a new prison at Thornton Hall, a project which has been shelved indefinitely. Recent reports suggest that our prisons are grossly over-crowded and that conditions therein are deplorable. I call on the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform to come into this House to outline what he intends doing in terms of the provision of extra spaces in our prisons and how he intends to tackle gross over-crowding therein, which is a recipe for unrest into the future. Proper measures must be put in place as a matter of urgency before the situation gets totally out of hand.