Report validates residents’ concerns

YESTERDAY the Comptroller and Auditor General’s annual report highlighted many areas of serious concern regarding the process that led to the purchase of Thornton Hall, the price paid and the lack of consistency in evaluating the different sites (Irish Examiner, September 28).

This report validates what the residents of Thornton have been saying for the past 20 months. We believe an independent inquiry into all aspects of the purchase of Thornton Hall, and its suitability for this proposed development, is now warranted. If the amount paid for the site and the process used was flawed and anti-competitive, it stands to reason that the suitability of the site must now be called into question.

This site is clearly unsuitable and no amount of taxpayers’ money can make it suitable. In addition to the €30 million already spent on the land, up to a further €40m will have to be spent on providing basic infrastructure such as sewerage, water and electricity — and that’s before an access road is built or the site is excavated.

Even then, its location, remote from garda, emergency services and hospitals, is going to cause ongoing problems. Also, the fact the site is on a flight path close to Dublin Airport, with no public transport and accessed via an inferior rural road network, will all need to be addressed before any development of this site could start.

What of our community and environment in all of this? How will this development affect our area? Whose homes or farms will be subject to compulsory purchase orders to provide infrastructure to this badly located development?

A development of this size cannot be hidden away in a rural setting. It will change everything. We have seen communities live with the legacy of bad planning, lack of foresight and careless disregard for conservation. We thought we lived in a more enlightened era. This is not progress. This is State-sponsored vandalism.

No one seems to know the final cost of this prison — it could top €800 million, it could be more; there is no costing for this massive project. The latest annual report from the Irish Prison Service suggests savings will be made on the cost of keeping prisoners in custody by building this new super-prison. Without knowing the cost of the PPP contract, how can the IPS credibly make that claim?

It is now time for the Government establish a full independent investigation into all aspects of the purchase of Thornton Hall before any further commitment is made to progress the PPP for building this proposed development.

If this is not independently investigated, it will come back to haunt Government politicians who turn a blind eye. It will be the subject of a tribunal in years to come. At the very least, the Irish taxpayer is entitled to know whether it was corruption or incompetence that allowed Thornton Hall — a totally unsuitable site — to be bought unconditionally for such a hugely inflated price.

Teresa McDonnell

Kilcoskan

Kilsallaghan

Co Dublin