There is increasing evidence these days of the existence of a mathematical relationship between the intensity of bluster from the Minister for Justice and the extent to which he is in trouble on any particular issue.
His exit from the traps on the Dáil's first day back last week was a case in point. The Opposition had targeted the enormous price paid by the State for land at Thornton Hall to locate the new Mountjoy Prison complex.
Michael McDowell's response was to launch an attack of extraordinary vitriol on RTÉ, which had highlighted the issue the previous evening on its Primetime current affairs programme. RTÉ had calculated to mislead the public and had deliberately concealed material facts, thundered the Minister.
It's an old trick: manufacture a spurious row, and hope it distracts from the core issue. And in this instance, it worked. Much of the coverage since has focused on the Minister's complaints about RTÉ.
Michael McDowell's bravado is not just for public consumption, it seems. We're told the Cabinet has discussed his row with RTÉ and backs him against the station. The Cabinet, however, should know better, and would be more usefully engaged in subjecting the process involved in the Thornton purchase to intense scrutiny.
Stripping aside the grandstanding and posturing, there are two key issues involved here. Firstly, the scale of the price paid for the 150 acres in north Co Dublin - €30 million for agricultural land that has an estimated value of about €6 million; and secondly, the overwhelming evidence that the land chosen is seriously inappropriate for development as a super prison.
On the first point, the Government's explanation for the grossly inflated price paid is that land prices shoot up as soon as vendors are aware that the State is the buyer. This may well be so, but it is precisely the reason for the existence of the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO).
This mechanism enables the State to buy land for infrastructural purposes at market prices, and consequently eliminates speculative attempts to screw the taxpayer. It also allows for the selection of the most suitable sites as opposed to a dependence on whatever happens to be for sale at any particular time.
A prison development certainly qualifies as infrastructure, so it remains a mystery as to why the State did not use its powers to acquire land at a fraction of the €30 million.
Mr McDowell announced this week that he will now consider updating the law to allow prisons to be acquired under CPO. Even if this were necessary (an arguable point), the question remains as to why it was not done prior to the outlay of such vast sums.
As to the site itself at Thornton, serious questions remain about its selection process and its suitability for what will become a massive prison and psychiatric hospital complex.
The Public Procurement Guidelines (1994) state that government departments must obtain a valuation of sites intended for purchase from the Valuation Office. From the documents obtained by local residents under the Freedom of Information Act, there is no indication that such a valuation exercise was undertaken for the Thornton lands.
Planning permission had previously been refused for a number of developments in the immediate area, all of them much smaller than the proposed prison. The grounds stated for refusal were the substandard nature of the roads network and the serious injury which would be inflicted upon the rural character of the area.
Preliminary planning reports on the Thornton site purchase did not refer to these objections to local development from the statutory planning authorities. An initial engineering report further noted that "a detailed survey of the site, together with a geophysical and an archaeological study, will be required to finalise the suitability of the site". This did not occur prior to the State's purchase of the land, which as we now know was a rushed affair.
The initial requirement from the Department of Justice was for 100 acres. No explanation has been provided for the fact that it bought 150 acres, paying out €10 million for 50 unnecessary acres.
The business at Thornton is now subject to an unprecedented number of challenges. Local residents have gone to court, seeking to have the development judicially reviewed. The European Commission is investigating the legality of the absence of any environment impact study associated with such a huge development in what is a small country area.
After the discovery of enormous potential archaeology in the area (the existence of which Michael McDowell had flatly denied), Fingal County Council has designated the site as an Architectural Conservation Area in an attempt to preserve the rural character of the locality.
It is clear that this has become a mess of unholy proportions. The Minister's attempt to deflect justifiable public rage should be seen for what it is - a disgraceful use of Dáil privilege to launch a savage attack on RTÉ for highlighting the gross waste of public money for which he is responsible.