MOUNTJOY Prison should be shut and sold, members of the Government's anti drugs task force believe.
The site should be sold to a developer and the money invested in the State's prison system, the task force chairman, Mr Pat Rabbitte, said yesterday.
The value of the site was estimated at £10 to £15 million by an estate agent, Mr Killian O'Higgins of Sherry FitzGerald, last night, depending on whether the Government designated it for tax relief.
Mr O'Higgins said the site is about 17 acres and is zoned for residential occupancy. However, it was difficult to estimate its value because the prison does not appear on maps to make it harder for people to plan breakouts.
The Department of Justice is currently engaged in a £75 million prison building programme which it says will provide 800 new prison places over a 30 month period.
The task force's "strong feeling" that Mountjoy should be closed was disclosed by Mr Rabbitte when he was introducing the task force's second report.
About 70 per cent of prisoners have a history of drug abuse, the report says. About half the addicts in the prison "have no desire to receive treatment for their addiction". Contrary to public opinion, it says, only a small number of prisoners start taking drugs while in prison.
It cites four problems which affect the ability of prison authorities to stop drugs being smuggled in:
. Drugs are smuggled into the prison in minute quantities, sometimes inside the bodies of prisoners;
. prison staff are in danger of being infected with HIV by needle injuries when searching for syringes;
. built in the 19th century, Mountjoy is not designed to deal with drug misuse;
. as the state's main committal centre, Mountjoy processes up to 6,000 inmates a year, some of whom are then sent to other prisons. The sheer numbers create great problems in controlling drug smuggling.