29th September 2005
Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. Fahey): I welcome the opportunity to address the House on this matter. We have consistently heard criticism from Opposition Deputies of delays in implementing infrastructural projects. Social commentators are forever banging on at us about the lack of so-called joined-up Government. Despite this, when the Minister, Deputy McDowell, presses forward with a bold initiative to replace the 155 year old, outmoded and inefficient design that is Mountjoy with a modern, efficient prison complex, the chattering classes rush to condemn him.
When the Government moves decisively to ensure prisoners are kept in humane conditions and have access to facilities, including psychiatric facilities that will assist in their rehabilitation, we are berated for recklessness and undue haste. How many more years would the Opposition parties have us wait before we take action to alleviate the shameful conditions that have resulted in persistent calls to replace Mountjoy?
The independent Irish Prisons Board, chaired by businessman Brian McCarthy, strongly urged the Minister not to attempt a refit at Mountjoy Prison but to go the replacement route which we are now rolling out with the acquisition of Thornton Hall.
Redeveloping the existing 20-acre site at Mountjoy Prison is neither financially viable, at an estimated cost of in excess of €400 million, nor practical from an operational or developmental perspective. Trying to fix Mountjoy Prison now would be like re-wiring a house with the lights still on. However, we have had calls from Opposition Deputies to do just that. Where would we put the 1,000 or so prisoners we hold there in the interim? Would we keep them all living on a building site? Where is the value for money in that? The development of a greenfield site at the 150-acre site at Thornton means that we will have the room to develop new facilities, introduce single person cells with in-cell sanitation and end the medieval practice of slopping out every morning and after every lock up period through the day. Deputies will readily appreciate that the size of the Thornton site gives us considerable flexibility in developing new facilities as well as allowing us plan for the future.
Contrary to the assertion of the Deputies opposite that we are wasting taxpayers' money, the Prison Service estimates that by replacing the Mountjoy Prison complex with a new prison complex at Thornton we should achieve operational savings of €30 million to €40 million each year. This represents more than the total cost of the site in one year's savings. In addition, the proceeds from the disposal of the site at Mountjoy Prison, in the region of €60 million to €90 million, will offset to a considerable degree the cost of the new development at Thornton. The acquisition of the site also means that the Mountjoy site will be available for development of a variety of facilities. This would undoubtedly rejuvenate the whole area around Mountjoy, and would benefit the local community. Surely Deputies across the floor should welcome this. One Deputy who represents the area, Deputy Costello, should consult his constituents on their preferences in this respect.
Mr. Costello: Is the Minister of State referring to the Comptroller and Auditor General? I would love to see him involved.
Mr. Fahey: In response to the Deputy's colleague's claims, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, as he said in his speech, has no difficulty with the Comptroller and Auditor General carrying out a review, which he will do in due course.
Ms Burton: He will only do so after the event.
Mr. Costello: In that case is the Minister of State supporting us?
Mr. Fahey: In examining the accounts of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Comptroller and Auditor General is free to carry out such a review at any stage and it is not a matter for the Minister. The Minister stated that he has no difficulty about this happening at any time.
Mr. J. O'Keeffe: In that case will the Government agree to our motion?
Mr. Fahey: The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, is to be congratulated. Time will prove this to be one of his best decisions as Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
Ms Burton: It will be a bit like the decision of the Minister of State on Mayo.
Mr. Fahey: The Opposition has made outrageous claims in this debate. Deputy Ó Snodaigh asserted that the procedures followed "may even have been a corrupt deal". I utterly refute that suggestion. I ask the Deputy to withdraw his unfounded allegation.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: I will not.
Mr. Fahey: It is typical of the type of politics the Deputy represents.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: It is not typical; it is fact. I have been proved right on other matters. Of all the corrupt practices in which Fianna Fáil-led governments have been involved over many years--
Acting Chairman (Dr. Woods): The Deputy should allow the Minister of State to speak without interruption.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: The Minister of State addressed his remarks to me and I am responding.
Acting Chairman: The Deputy will have to sit and take it.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: I do not have to sit and take anything.
Acting Chairman: The Deputy had his opportunity earlier.
Mr. Fahey: It is typical of the type of politics the Deputy represents.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: I am glad it is not the politics of the Minister of State which is to throw away natural resources.
Mr. Fahey: On behalf of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, I refute the suggestion that a corrupt deal was done in this case.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: The Minister of State does not need to refute it. It is corrupt.
Mr. Fahey: The Minister made it quite clear in his speech that he deliberately adopted an open process in seeking a site to replace Mountjoy.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: It was breached from start to finish.
Mr. Fahey: The minutes of the selection committee setting out the procedures followed were made public on the Department's website.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: They proved me right.
Mr. Fahey: If the Deputy had any sense of responsibility he would withdraw his allegation, which he should not have made in the first place.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: I will not withdraw it. The Minister of State has just proved me right.
Mr. Fahey: I have spent many hours over my years in this House seeking to explain why we have not been able to progress major projects to serve the public good. I find it ironic to be here today explaining why we are pressing ahead with a long overdue much needed capital project. However, Opposition Deputies want to put a stop to this very urgent and worthwhile project.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh: We want to stop it proceeding on this site.
Mr. Fahey: I commend the amendment to the House.
Mr. J. O'Keeffe: In trying to justify his €30 million purchase of the Thornton Hall farm, the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform treated the Dáil to a typical mixture of bluff, bluster and bravado. The high point of his speech - perhaps I should call it the low point - was his attack on RTE. In many ways this was a typical response of the Government in general and the Progressive Democrats in particular. When inconvenient facts are disclosed, the reaction is to shoot the messenger, which was the reaction of the Minister last night. The Government had the same reaction when Eddie Hobbs's television programme produced some inconvenient facts for the Government. Again it made an attack on RTE.
Mr. Andrews: What about Fine Gael and the--
Mr. J. O'Keeffe: The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, is a master manipulator of the media. It is well and good if he can get away it. However, he should know that in a democratic society a line exists between manipulation and control. He has attempted to cross this line. The "Prime Time" programme has already given him his answers. It is now clear that the Minister refused to appear on RTE. He has been given the opportunity and he still has the opportunity. Incidentally he also refused to appear before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights to answer questions on the matter. On the other hand he had no problem appearing in the House and giving his speech last night.
Mr. Costello: He refused to appear on "Morning Ireland" this morning.
Mr. J. O'Keeffe: He has used the sub judice rule to excuse his non-appearance either before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights or on RTE to answer questions on the issue. There is a contradiction here. My interpretation of the rule is that if an issue before the courts is also being debated in this House, at a committee or elsewhere, one should deal with the issue in a restrained way and one is quite entitled to deal with the issue provided one uses careful language and a measured approach. I will leave objective observers to decide whether the speech of the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform fitted within the category of being a measured reaction.
In his speech, the Minister admitted that RTE had done extensive research and had unearthed all the information. Is he now trying to suggest that only his version of events can be published or broadcast? He is using his attack on RTE and his attack on everybody else last night, including me - I do not take any notice of the rubbish coming from him - to deflect attention from his deficiencies and inadequacies in this transaction. He has essentially been caught in the corner. As he has awkward facts to explain, he just hits out at everybody including RTE. The default position of the Progressive Democrats on any issue is to shoot the messenger. After all the bluster and ranting is over, the Minister still must face the bare facts. It is rather like what Winston Churchill noted after the war: the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone were still there. He paid five times the market value for this farm. That fact remains. The Minister bought what I have called and will continue to call the dearest farm in Europe. We are not talking about any change with regard to Mountjoy but about the appalling waste of taxpayers' money in spending €30 million on a farm worth no more than €5 million or €6 million, and paying that for a prison site which turns out to be entirely unsuitable.
We will look at the question of cost, an issue which the Government has been trying to avoid. In terms of value for the taxpayer, this was a crazy transaction. Any property experts to whom I have spoken and who are involved in that area or adjoining areas said they were stunned by the amount of money paid by the Minister for the site. He was buying a farm - agricultural land. He did not have to get planning permission. The land did not need to have development potential of any kind. Zoning did not matter, nor did anything else. The Minister was supposed to get a suitable site at a reasonable cost. He got neither.
The Minister has attempted to use the process and explain through it that he did a great job. In the speeches delivered, much reference was made to the deficiencies in that process, and clearly such deficiencies existed. A farm was introduced at the end of the day, virtually at the last minute, dropped down from the clouds, so to speak, and within eight working days the sale was rushed through, accepted, put through Cabinet and contracted by the Minister.
The Minister cannot say that the process produced the result and that as a consequence he can justify this outrageous waste of public money. The process was irregular, but it was the Minister who set it up. If the process produced a bad result, he is also responsible. He will say he had to be open with everyone in the way he did business, that the matter had to be publicly advertised and so on. With whom was the Minister open? In the end, he was open only with the vendor, before whom he waved a crock of gold, and the vendor's advisers. At the same time, the Minister took great care to ensure that nobody else in the area or the community would have the slightest idea as to what he was about. If this project goes ahead it is those people and the coming generations who will suffer the consequences. They were not to be told what was happening. Where is the openness and transparency in that approach?
With regard to the process and the cost, the Minister is indicted on all fronts. He does not have an answer to the basic question why he paid five or six times the value of the farm. If any of us wished to buy a farm, would we do that? In my legal days I bought farms for many clients and I would not engage the Minister to do the job. There are many agents in the area involved. One would check the current market value with the agents in the area. One would check availability and take reasonable steps to ensure one was getting what one wanted. Nothing of that kind was done in this case. What happened took place with unseemly haste. It was rushed through at the last minute and there is no way of avoiding that. It was a disgracefully hurried decision in a situation where a preferred site was apparently back on the market, a site which was far superior and had been carefully examined by the committee.
The Minister talks about price per acre but the Coolquay site was clearly superior. It had access and development potential. Per acre it was a more expensive site, but I am not complaining about the price per acre because the site was suitable. The Minister has the duty - as has every member of Government - to get value for money and pay market value, no more or less. This did not happen in this case.
We have also ended up overpaying enormously for a site which clearly is unsuitable. That is becoming increasingly obvious. The suggestion has been made that the site was properly checked in advance, with the names of engineers and surveyors touted around by way of support. I have gone to the trouble of looking at the site search survey produced by these eminent people and everything I read in it confirms that going ahead with the purchase at the time was absolutely foolish.
The survey begins by telling us that the Thornton Hall site was 155 acres. No explanation has been given for purchasing just 150 acres. This reason is that the five acres zoned for rural cluster development were the only valuable part of that farm. No explanation has been given as to why the only valuable five acres out of 155 suddenly disappeared off the scene over a 24-hour period. The Minister did not even mention this.
The report goes on to say that a detailed survey of the site together with a geophysical and archaeological study would be required to finalise a decision on suitability. Why was this not done before the decision was made? This was a good report and everything it said about road access indicated enormous problems ahead. It noted there was no sewerage service for the land. It also looked at the issues of water, electricity and gas supplies and in all cases pointed out the difficulties and problems involved. The report ends by advising further investigation by means of bore holes and notes that such investigation could not be completed prior to the completion of the report.
Everything in the report tells us that this transaction should not have gone ahead in the manner it did. If one looks at the situation, coupled with the decision of Fingal County Council yesterday to designate the vicinity involved as an architectural conservation area, an ACA, one wonders what will ever happen in terms of a prison development on the site.
Regarding what has been referred to as the Mullingar motion, the Fine Gael-Labour motion, the bottom line is that major concerns have been raised about this site transaction and the public is entitled to have those concerns addressed. I fully accept that when Deputy Costello or I raise such concerns, people may legitimately say that we are in Opposition and that is our job. However, our motion is not intended as a means of utterly condemning the Minister, although at first sight of what has happened, it should be. We are restrained in what we are doing. Our motion is effectively neutral. We are simply calling for an independent examination of the transaction. Why does the Minister reject this approach? What has he to hide? That is the issue before the House and for the public.
The Minister said this is a bizarre proposal, complete nonsense with no basis in law or reality. I have no respect for the Minister's business sense but I have some for his legal knowledge. However, at this stage I am beginning to doubt that too, because the provision permitting the Oireachtas to request the Comptroller and Auditor General to conduct a report goes back to 1923, the foundation of the State. Those who founded the State had the foresight to include a provision in section 7 of the Comptroller and Auditor-General Act to allow this procedure to be followed. The Minister is therefore quite incorrect when he says this proposal has no basis in law or reality. It is based on the Comptroller and Auditor-General Act 1923, as amended.
That then gives rise to the central and major issue. What has the Government to hide? Why will the Minister not allow an independent audit of this transaction? He tries to defend the indefensible. He is not at this stage prepared to allow the Dáil ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to examine the transaction. He wants to leave it for 12 months, when the deal will be done and dusted and nothing can be done to question it. The approach of the Government and the Minister, Deputy McDowell, is very simple. Effectively, he is asking the Dáil to endorse an approach which involved paying five times the value for this farm to acquire a site which it transpires is utterly unsuitable for the purpose for which it was purchased.
On that basis, I ask the House to accept the very reasonable Fine Gael-Labour Party motion and to reject the Government amendment.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 65; Níl, 53.
Respect for rights in the penal system with prison as a last resort.