State denies wasting funds on stalled jail project

THE consortium seeking to build the Thornton Hall prison in Co Dublin wanted “hundreds of millions of euro” more than the original price submitted, Justice Minister Dermot Ahern has said.

On Tuesday, the Prison Service announced that negotiations with the Léargas consortium chosen as preferred bidder for the project had collapsed because the costs were too high.

Speaking in the Dáil on the issue yesterday, Mr Ahern said the state wasn’t going to issue “a blank cheque” to have the prison built. “It is the case that the annual cost of this went up by over 30% since 2007 to date,” he said. “Although most of that was due to the cost of finance, it was not offset by a concurrent reduction in construction costs.