THE BUILDING of a new prison in Thornton Hall, in north Dublin, was strongly defended by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern.
“Mountjoy prison has to go. It is a Victorian prison built in 1850 for short-term convicts awaiting transportation to Tasmania,” he said.
“In simple terms, the accommodation is substandard; there is no in-cell sanitation and it is overcrowded, and the constrained size of the site restricts the development of prisoner programmes.”
Mr Ahern said that the new prison was part of the solution to the problems facing the prison system. He said that it would do away with slopping out, with substandard accommodation and with overcrowding. It would provide state-of-the-art prison accommodation and facilities for education, training and rehabilitation.
“The design is such as 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,” said Mr Ahern.
“The intention is to assess each new prisoner . . . determine what risk they pose and what is the most appropriate regime to manage their integration into society.”
Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said that the current prison system was failing society due to the absence of comprehensive programmes of rehabilitation. Research suggested that half the prisoners reoffended within four years of release.
Labour spokesman Pat Rabbitte claimed that the Minister seemed unable to challenge the proposition that the construction of a super prison at a remote site, with poor public transport, only reinforced some of the prison problems, and created new ones.
Sinn Féin spokesman Aengus Ó Snodaigh criticised the “farcical’’ manner in which the prison’s planning permission had been granted.
