€100m and 100 acres: jail to hold 1,000

DUBLIN’S new prison will be five-times the size of Mountjoy and will cater for 1,000 inmates.

Justice Minister Michael McDowell is planning a massive prison on a 100-acre site in the greater Dublin area.

Costing an estimated €100 million, the prison site will be bigger than an 18-hole golf course and five-times the size of all four Mountjoy units put together. The cost of the building will be offset by the sale of the 20-acre North Circular Road site, which is expected to fetch over €40m.

A package deal may be struck involving a developer taking over Mountjoy but also agreeing to design and build the new prison.

Details of the size of the complex emerged after Prison Service management yesterday invited expressions of interest from landowners with a site available for immediate development.

They are seeking land in Dublin which must be suitable to build a secure prison or prisons with capacity for up to 1,000 inmates "as well as scope for further development."

Landowners are being asked to write to the Prison Service if they have about 100 acres available within 25 kilometres of Dublin city centre, convenient to and accessible from the main public transport and road networks.

The facility is to replace the decrepit Mountjoy, the Training Unit, St Patrick's Institution including a new €9m wing that has never been used and possibly the five-year-old €16.5m Dóchas women's centre. In the longer term, it is also planned to do something similar with the overcrowded Cork Prison, selling it off and building a new prison on a green field outside the city.

Property experts believe there are few, if any, tracts of land available in Co Dublin to accommodate such a large facility and it may have to be built on a greenfield site in Meath, Kildare or Louth. "It's bigger than an 18-hole golf course," said Ken McDonald, of estate agents Hooke and McDonald. "I think it will be difficult to find a suitable site in Dublin. Landowners holding banks of land that are not zoned for development will be tempted to express an interest.

Because the construction relates to the security of the State, the Prison Service does not have to pass through all the planning hoops to get permission to build. But a spokesman said: "we're not going to enter into a deal if there are going to be difficulties."

There is no suitable available land owned by the State. Abbotstown has been ruled out because, according to the Government, it is earmarked for other development.

Meanwhile, Prison Service management and staff representatives were back in the Labour Relations Commission yesterday as efforts to head off industrial action continue. Prison officers have already rejected management's offer of an annualised hours scheme plus a lump sum in return for ending overtime.