Parliamentary Question: Prisons Building Programme

3rd November 2004

182. Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the research his Department has conducted into the experience of the use of public private partnerships to build prisons in other countries; the relative costs of PPP built versus publicly built prisons in other countries; and his views on the assessment of the evidence. [25923/04]

Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. McDowell): 

Procurement, finance and design methods for the construction of prisons and other capital projects are kept under review as a matter of course. In this context, officials from my Department regularly meet representatives of other prison services and discuss their approach to these issues.

Any public private partnership project in this jurisdiction must be sanctioned by the Department of Finance. The Department of Finance established the National Development Finance Agency to advise Departments about public private partnership projects and my Department consults with it as appropriate. The relative costs of PPP built versus publicly built prisons in other countries is a matter for the authorities in the countries concerned.