THE COST of preparing for the mooted new prison in Thornton Hall, north Co Dublin, has climbed to €43.3 million, with the Government planning further expenditure on the perimeter wall despite no contractor yet in place to build the main jail.
New details released by the Department of Justice show that some €7.4 million has been spent on professional and consultancy fees on the project, while almost €30 million was spent on the initial purchase of the site.
A total of €500,000 has been spent on landscaping the site, which is in effect still an open field, and €500,000 has also been paid to security firms patrolling the site.
A further €2.9 million has been spent on “site preparation and various surveys”. These surveys involve geological, engineering, archaeological and environmental studies needed for such a large- scale development.
The tender for the construction of the main prison buildings will not be put out for a number of months.
However, a shortlist of preferred bidders for the construction of the perimeter wall has been drawn up and work is expected to begin on that phase in the first quarter of 2011, taking a year to complete.
The cost of the wall is not yet known but will likely run into tens of millions.
The prison is planned to house 2,200 inmates to replace the obsolete Mountjoy Prison and end chronic levels of overcrowding across the prison system.
Labour spokesman on justice Pat Rabbitte TD said the project was deliberately being progressed beyond the point of no return by the current Government so as to make any abandonment of the planned jail unacceptable to the public when a new government comes into office.
“The taxpayer would be in no mood to take a write-off of the millions already spent on what will essentially be a field with a wall around it. So any new government would probably have no option but to press ahead with a prison of some sort on the site. It’s a hospital pass to any new government.”
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern has consistently maintained the prison will still reach the originally envisaged size. “It makes sense to tender for the construction of these much-needed prison spaces now in an environment where construction costs have fallen significantly,” he said.
The prison would now be built in phases, with a 700-berth, 400-cell jail to be constructed first, before more accommodation was added.
However, when it was first mooted, and before negotiations with the preferred contractors, a Leargas consortium led by Michael McNamara Construction, broke down in May 2009, a 2,200-berth prison was mooted.
The project was to be completed on a public-private-partnership basis. This would have involved Leargas designing and building the 2,200-berth jail and providing some services once construction was complete.
The prison would have been paid for by annual payments over 25 years by the State to Leargas.
The biggest expenditure to date has been €29.9 million on the site, a former farm purchased by the State in 2005 for the purpose of building the jail.
The cost of the 150-acre site was €200,000 an acre, compared with the average cost of €17,000 an acre for land in north Dublin at the time.
Thornton Hall: The Story So Far
JANUARY 2005 A 150-acre site at Kilsallaghan near Swords, Co Dublin, is acquired for €30 million. The price per acre is far higher than any other sales in the area at that time, prompting criticism of then minister for justice Michael McDowell.
The site is to be the location for a new 2,200-berth super prison to replace Mountjoy Prison. The near 1,500 extra spaces it will provide will end chronic prison overcrowding. A new mental hospital is also planned at the site to replace the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, Dublin.
JULY 2006 The Leargas consortium, comprising Michael McNamara Construction, Barclays Private Equity and GSL, is among a shortlist of four bidders.
JULY 2006 McDowell unveils plans for a new urban village at the Mountjoy complex. The regeneration will begin when the site is vacated. It will be carried out under the direction of the Office of Public Works, with a design team headed by one of the State’s foremost architectural firms, Heneghan Peng.
OCTOBER 2006 Green Party chairman Dan Boyle, then an opposition TD, tells the Public Accounts Committee that the price paid for the Thornton site was eight times higher than the market rate.
MAY 2007 Leargas confirmed as preferred bidder. Talks begin between consortium and State.
AUGUST 2007 The High Court rejects a move by residents of Kilsallaghan to halt the prison.
MAY 2008 Taoiseach Brian Cowen tells the Dáil there is “no indication” the talks with Leargas have stalled. He was speaking as McNamara withdraws from five Dublin public-private partnership social housing schemes.
NOVEMBER 2008 It emerges that almost €11 million has been spent on the Thornton Hall site preparing for construction.
MARCH 2009 The visiting committee of Mountjoy Prison says it believes Thornton Hall will be delayed for a number of years.
MARCH 2009 Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern says the contracts with Leargas will be signed “later this year”.
MAY 2009 Irish Prison Service and Department of Justice announce its two-year negotiations with Leargas have ended because the prices quoted are too high.
JULY 2009 Plans to build a new Central Mental Hospital on the Thornton Hall site beside the new jail are scrapped.
APRIL 2010 The overcrowding in the prison system, which Thornton Hall was supposed to alleviate, reaches record highs, with more than 800 inmates freed because there is nowhere to house them in the prison system.
July 2010: Ahern announces plans to proceed with the Thornton Hall plan but with a 700 berth rather than 2,200 berth facility, as initially envisaged.
PRESENT Spending on the jail has reached €43.3 million before the award of the main contract has been tendered for. Construction of the perimeter wall, which is likely to cost tens of millions, is set to begin in the first quarter of next year and take a year to complete.
