Landowners to make 'billions' out of prison

Public Accounts Committee: Landowners near the proposed new prison at Thornton Hall in north county Dublin will make "billions" arising from the provision of water and sewerage services to the new facility, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee has heard.

Committee chairman Michael Noonan said land rezoning normally followed the line of services installed by the State, and in the case of Thornton Hall this would make a lot of people very wealthy.

Department of Justice officials told the committee yesterday it was planned to run sewerage lines to the prison from Swords, about five miles away, while water provision would arrive down the N2 carriageway. The exact route to be followed has yet to be worked out.

Labour's Joan Burton said this meant a tremendous area of land was going to be positioned for large-scale development, entirely contrary to the county development plan for Fingal. Landowners would see the value of their lands enormously enhanced and, because they were so close to the services, it would be almost impossible to refuse them planning permission. Lots of developers would be prepared to build such services for free and the land enhancement values would run into billions, she suggested.

Mr Noonan pointed out that the State had unique powers in development and was not required to go through the normal checks and balances of the planning system. "This has the potential to be the subject matter of the next tribunal," he warned.

Department officials stoutly defended their purchase of the 150 acres of lands for the prison for €29.9 million, or €200,000 an acre, while the Comptroller and Auditor General, John Purcell, repeated his view that this was twice the going-rate of similar land in the area.

Department secretary general Seán Aylward also defended the decision of the State not to acquire the lands confidentially using a third party.

While there were times when it was appropriate for the State to do this, it was not good practice to take such an approach when dealing with such a large, controversial project.

The public would have been outraged if it discovered the State had engaged in a "vast deceit" by failing to disclose its intentions and seeking out all possible sites for the prison. "It would be ethically questionable for the State to put any person in a situation where they were tricked into selling land for a prison development and became the object of local hostility possibly forcing them to leave as a result."

Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins said the controversy was the consequence of a decade of unrestrained speculation and profiteering in land which the Government had failed to address. "God forbid that we should look for land at reasonable prices; it seems to be a crime that we look at compulsory purchase orders to acquire it."

Fianna Fáil TDs on the committee supported the approach taken by Michael McDowell and his officials.

Seán Fleming congratulated Mr Aylward on obtaining outstanding value for money.