Minister for Justice Michael McDowell is to visit Kilworth in north Cork today amid growing expectation that the Cabinet is to approve the construction of a new state-of-the-art prison on Department of Defence lands.
A Department of Justice spokeswoman said the Minister would not make an announcement today but conceded the visit would be regarded as strengthening the expectation that Kilworth would be developed as a 450-inmate facility to replace Cork Prison at Rathmore road in Cork city.
Mr McDowell's visit, on which he will be accompanied by Department of Justice secretary general Seán Aylward, follows the establishment before Christmas of a working group to look at the logistics of transferring the land from the Department of Defence to the Department of Justice.
It also follows an extensive examination of the 3,000-acre Department of Defence property by a team of surveyors in late November/early December.
This led to the identification of a site on the eastern side of the main Cork-Dublin road adjacent to a back road to Kilworth village.
It is understood that agreement was reached in principle in December to locate the prison on lands at Lynch Camp in Kilworth. An exact timeframe for the construction of the facility has yet to be decided, although it is likely to take a number of years.
During a visit to Cork at the end of November, Mr McDowell told The Irish Times he had had preliminary discussions with Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea regarding the possibility of locating the facility at Lynch Camp near Kilworth.
Mr McDowell said the proposal was an alternative to developing a purpose-built prison on Spike Island in Cork Harbour to replace Cork Prison, which is seriously overcrowded.
Mr McDowell said in November that he was aware of the tourism potential of Spike Island given its rich heritage as an island prison following intense lobbying by local tourism groups in Cork Harbour, but he stressed that a replacement would have to be found for Cork Prison.
"I want to get on with the development of an alternative to Cork Prison which is seriously overcrowded, underprovided with facilities, no in-cell sanitation, no real provision for any form of recreational grounds and very vulnerable to infiltration by drugs and the like," Mr McDowell told reporters.
Cork Prison, which was built originally as a British military prison, was designed to cater for about 160 inmates but it currently accommodates over 280 with most inmates having to double up two to a cell in cells which were intended to cater for just one inmate.
According to a prison officer source, Kilworth would be a suitable site given that it is now fewer than 30 minutes from Cork city following the opening of the Fermoy bypass and would facilitate prisoner transfers from courts in Cork, Kerry and Waterford.
The only issue would be its accessibility for visitors but a new purpose-built prison would make it easier for prison staff to prevent the smuggling of drugs, said the prison officer source.
