Madam, – I note that former Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell’s lasting legacy to the state (Front page, July 28th) is a yet-to-be-built prison which has already cost an estimated €42.4 million and will provide a total of 400 cells as currently configured.
By crude reckoning if the prison were now fully built at that price it would be averaging a cost of €106,000 per cell and of course the final figure will probably be twice that amount.
A cursory online glance at that other legacy of the PD/Fianna Fáil coalition, the busted Irish property market, reveals two and three-bedroom properties around the country selling for less than €100,000 obviating the need for their occupants to share a bedroom.
Perhaps we could simply decentralise our prison population and save the state from yet another PD/FF coalition white elephant that future generations of Irish taxpayers would have pay the mortgage on? – Yours, etc,