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THE IRISH PRISON Service has spent more than €114,000 over the past three years on an empty site bought more than twenty years ago for a proposed ‘super-prison’ that was never built.
The state originally paid a “grossly excessive” €29 million for the Thornton Hall site in 2004 with the most recent valuation putting an estimated price of €6.5 million on the land.
Bills for the site continue to mount, however, with the Irish Prison Service spending around €40,000 a year on its upkeep.
A breakdown of costs between 2022 and 2024 shows expenditure of just over €36,000 on gas network costs.
The Irish Prison Service said that covered payments for maintenance to a “collapsed chamber” on site and was based on instructions given to them by Gas Networks Ireland.
A further €28,000 was paid for electricity supply to ensure power to the main house on the land for security and heating systems.
A sum of €1,599 was spent on a site survey to figure out the boundary of the state’s landholding in North Dublin.
There were €4,832 in water charges and a site valuation report that cost the taxpayer almost €14,000 and found the site was worth less than a quarter of what was paid for it.
Other bills included maintenance costs of around €27,000 “to repair boundary and perimeter security and for planned preventative maintenance.”
There was also a digital security bill of €2,420 for “provision of [a] remote access CCTV system.”
The site was first bought as part of disastrous Department of Justice plans to develop a ‘super-prison’ with the intention of closing down Mountjoy Jail and redeveloping prime lands there.
Thornton Hall lay idle for two decades until the government announced plans for a tented camp for 1,000 international protection applicants last year.
However, that was strongly opposed by local residents and the project was thrown into significant doubt after a High Court challenge.
Asked about the ongoing expenditure, the Irish Prison Service said the Thornton Hall site was fully serviced with significant investment at the time to construct a major access road.
They said a two-year licence agreement had been signed last year for the use of thirty acres of the site for provision of accommodation for international protection applicants.
A spokesman said: “The site remains of strategic interest to the State and the Irish Prison Service has a duty to secure and maintain the site at Thornton Hall.
“The site includes a property which is a ‘Protected Structure’ and which the Prison Service is legally obliged to secure and maintain.”
The spokesman added that a licence agreement has been in place with a local farmer since 2023 for lease of the land which “partially offsets” their ongoing costs.
It was probably halted taking into consideration Jude Nolan’s suspended sentences for repeated offenders. The damage he has single handed caused to Irish society by sending a message that crime won’t be punished has been of great magnitude.
@J Ven: And send them in to become worse offenders? Irish prisons are a mess where A. They are full to capacity and B. There is no programmes in place to help them to come out and turn their life around, the ‘A leopard never changes its spots’ infatuation in Ireland and what does it do? Send petty offenders into a life of crime or have them come put an addict and yet no talk of any change, it isn’t the 19th century although you wouldn’t know that going on Irish prisons.
@Brian D’Arcy: easy there Judge. Irish prisons are not American prisons, you don’t have to join a gang to make it or be someone’s girlfriend waiting to be roughed off in the chow line. That’s not the judges problems. Burglars and thieves with 20 priors are not petty criminals who stole a jumper in Penneys. The Irish prison system have to provide a rehabilitation program but the Judges job is to apply the law, prison sentences.
@Mr Inbetween: exactly.
The waste of taxpayers money in this country is shocking.
@common sense: €80 a day it works out at
Calm your horses
@mark moran: For an empty sute
@mark moran: The government paid €29 million for a site that’s now worth €6.5 million… no bother.
@Brian D’Arcy: during the boom ? Ye ?
@mark moran: 100k per annum to lock someone up.
@mark moran: the money is still gone to waste, it was made money even for boom prices. 20 years on either build or sell
Sure it’s only tax payers money, and the tax payers voted the same crowd back in, who “regulate and govern” the OPW, Uisce Eireann, Irish prison service, etc. And give contracts to BAM etc.
Why would any of the above care who spends what reckless ridicilous amounts of money on anything?
There’s literally no consequences for anyone.
@KTH: BAM will build a prison for 600billion and a bike shelter for free if they get the contract
From whom did they purchase the land? Was that person anyway related to anyone in power? Who was the minister? Why was the prison not built? Is their new plans for the land now?
@Dan Murphy: Not built because it was deemed too remote for inmates family to visit them !!
@JP: boo hoo, get the bus
100k not bad for 3 years the crime is that it’s been vacant for decades, typically civil servants inefficienticty and in decision
Murky purchase by the dept of justice.
@AnthonyK: I wonder who owned the land prior to the purchase?
We’d be a lot better off, if the government STOPPED wasting our money on vanity projects like this.
It’s about time the Irish citizens of this country Unite and stopped all this madness of immigration into Ireland as I see it everyday I’m Dublin Airport all the unknown people getting the bus from Belfast, Crossover to another bus that’s going down the country and never to be seen again. This is all done during the night.
@Tommy: Evidence for this allegation?
How much did it cost to keep the meadows trimmed ?
Ah now, don’t forget all the staff and management hired for the site including a governor.
Where are they all located?
What is the governor governing?
A Site Valuation that came in at €14,000 ?????
Like really ,WTF????
Every week there’s a story of corruption because you can call it nothing else.
@Philip Kennedy: Maybe I read it wrong Philip but the analysis is from a breakdown of cost’s between 2022 and 2024????
20 year’s since it was purchased alright, read it again.
I met my love by the WRC wall, dreamed a dream by the security hut, I kissed my girl by new bike shed, Dirty Old Town, dirty old town.
@Kit10 Dublin: lol I love it!! My lost partner and I used to love re-jigging tunes… when in North Inner City Dublin it was- ‘we built this City, we built this City on crack and dole’…
A good place for all the illegal boat people.
@Róisín Flemping Bunt-Himmler PhD: Did you hear about the clandestine Africans caught trying to enter Ireland in a container in Wexford? People are being dubbed racist for trying to express genuine concerns about Ireland and its future. We are considered a soft touch, just like Sweden, where serious crime rates by immigrants are frightening. They are wishing they could have been more sensible when it came to immigration control. But, like us, they didn’t want to be considered “right wing” or “racist” therefore, common sense goes out the window.
Minister responsible for the sign off, none other than Michael Mc Dowell as a member of a FF government.
Build it and they will come
@Alex: yup. Privatised prison system incoming! People of a particular demographic are about to be a product in a new ‘circular economy’.
Here we go again, TheJournal making a small number bigger, by using a 3-year benchmark. Trying to make a story out of nothing, and they want us to pay for this alarmist tripe
And yet left wing dopes say we need to pay more tax…
Wake up and try working…
@Paul: So working is woke now?
Cheaper than rebuilding a wall in Ballsbridge,Dublin 4
So the farmer got a lottery win selling the place and has been leasing it back ever since?
Remember this debacle when McDowell is running for President, he authorised the whole thing!
Michael McDowell was the minister that sanctioned that purchase I believe
Anyone remember the cost for ‘maintaining’ the fences on the canal? This seems great value for a change!
have your say