McDowell may be quizzed over €30m prison site

JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell may be asked to appear before a powerful Oireachtas committee to explain why he approved paying 10 times the market value for the site of a new 1,000-bed super-prison to replace Mountjoy.

Opposition politicians, property analysts and locals have been left stunned at the €30 million paid for the 150-acre site in north Dublin.

The land at Killsallaghan on the Dublin-Meath border is a greenfield site and Fingal County Council had no plans to rezone it for development.