Cheaper farmland ‘not suitable’ for superprison site

A FARM that sold for a fraction of the cost of the one purchased by the Government for a prison complex would not have been a suitable alternative, the Department of Justice said yesterday.

The farm near Ratoath, Co Meath, sold for €26,000 an acre compared to almost €200,000 an acre for the farm bought by the Government.

The 150-acre site at Thorton Hall, where a “superprison” is to replace the Mountjoy jail complex, cost the State €29.9 million.

This week the 240-acre site at Grange Farm in Kilbride, Ratoath, went for 6.2m. The site is divided by a road into two sections of 190 acres and 50 acres.

“There is something really problematic and very open to question about the price for the controversial jail farm,” said a spokesman for the Rolestown St Margaret’s Action Group.

He accused Justice Minister Michael McDowell of “stonewalling” on the price paid for the farm during questioning in the Dáil.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Jim O’Keeffe claimed the minister had “ripped off” taxpayers by signing up to buy lands almost eight times the price of Grange Farm.

But a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said the two farms were not comparable and that Grange Farm would not have met the criteria for a site for the replacement prison.

A source in the Prison Service said that the Grange Farm was on a back road.

“From a security point alone it would not be accepted, as it would be too easy for an ambush.”

He said that when land owners hear the land is to be the site of a major prison, the price automatically doubles.

He added that land situated on a main road also attracted far higher prices.