A local man has secured leave from the High Court to challenge the construction of a new prison complex on lands at Thornton, Co Dublin.
Mr Richard Merne, a local authority engineer, is challenging the procedure adopted by the Minister for Justice in selecting the Thornton site, purchased early this year for some €30 million.
Mr Merne claims the site is unsuitable with inadequate water, sewage and transport facilities.
He also contends the Minister was required under an EC directive to carry out an environmental impact assessment prior to entering into the contract for the site but failed to do so.
He further claims that a "significant discovery" of a prehistoric arcaheological site in the area could be adversely affected by any works on the Thornton site.
Separate proceedings are being brought by Mr Merne against the Minister for the Environment to have the site declared a national monument.
Mr Merne, a member of the Kilsallaghan Residents Heritage Association, said it had commissioned a report as part of a programme for heritage protection underway since 2002.
That report indciated significant finds of a prehistoric archaeological site, together with the existence of a quarry and potential burial site at Thornton Hall and ancient roadway.
This discovery was of such archaeological and historic significance as to constitute a national monument for the purposes of the National Monument Acts, he said.
The Minister for the Environment had been notified of the find on April 5th last and the Minister for Justcie was notified on April 7th last, he said. Both Ministers had formally acknowledged the notificaitons but had not substantively replied.
Mr Justice Peart today granted leave to Mr Gerard Hogan SC, for Mr Merne, to bring judicial review proceedings against the Minister for Justice and the State, in which Mr Merne will seek various orders and declarations, including an order quashing the decison to purchase the Thornton site.