Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 169: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will phase out the practice of slopping out in prisons; and if so, the time-frame within which he will do so. [9002/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Irish Prison Service has embarked on a major capital programme involving the replacement of the four prisons at the Mountjoy campus, Portlaoise Prison, Cork Prison and parts of Limerick Prison. The primary objective of this programme is the modernisation of the prison estate, a key component of which will be the provision of in-cell sanitation as a key part of each of these new building projects.

It is intended that within the next three to five years all prison accommodation will be equipped with full in cell sanitation. In this context a new fully equipped 138 place cell block is due to open at Portlaoise Prison later this year and construction is well advanced on another new block at Wheatfield which will provide 144 additional places.

The current status of the Thornton Hall Prison project is that negotiations are currently underway with a commercial consortium, which was selected following an E.U. tender procedure for the design, construction, finance and maintenance of the proposed prison facilities. This will replace the existing Mountjoy Prison.

I am pleased to advise the House that the Notice of Development and Environmental Impact Assessment in respect of the project was published on Friday 29 February 2008. A copy of the Notice of Development has been lodged in the Oireachtas library.