Campaign against €30m jail stepped up

Residents battling to block a new €30m jail in north Dublin today took their campaign to the front page of a national paper.

The Rolestown St Margaret’s Action Group (RSMAG) have placed an advert against Thornton Hall – the new home for Mountjoy and the Central Mental Hospital – in the Irish Independent.

The ad calls on the Government to look at alternative sites, and mocks the qualifying criteria used by the Department of Justice’s expert committee who selected the 150-acre greenfield site.

Nessa Shevlin, spokeswoman for the protesters, said the experts had rejected the St Margaret’s location but Minister for Justice Michael McDowell had pushed ahead with the plan.

“Thornton Hall is totally unsuitable by the expert committee’s own criteria,” the spokeswoman said.

“We have been trying to tell Minister McDowell and the other Cabinet members that the Government has made a huge mistake by agreeing to buy this site and by forging ahead with this plan. But they are not listening, they don’t want to hear.”

Thornton Hall is the planned new home for around 1,000 inmates from Mountjoy Prison, St Patrick’s Institution, the Training Unit and the Dochas women’s jail. Patients from the Central Mental Hospital will also be housed in an adjoining facility.

The newspaper advert questions the huge cost of the site, its suitability and the selection criteria used. It also claims planning permission will not be needed for the facility.

“If it goes ahead it will result in a massive waste of taxpayers’ money and will have untold consequences for our community, environment and heritage,” Ms Shevlin insisted.

The deal for the land – at almost €200,000 an acre – is due to be sealed in October and Ms Shevlin claimed the Government should pull out now or risk wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ money.