Thornton Hall has cost taxpayers €30,000 a year to keep in shape for planned prison and asylum-seeker housing use, figures show

Gardai at the entrance to the Thornton Hall site, which has been earmarked as a possible site to house asylum seekers. Photo: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

Gabija Gataveckaite

The Thornton Hall site, once earmarked for a ‘super prison’, has cost the taxpayer around €30,000 per year to maintain and is equipped with electricity, water, gas and CCTV.

The Government now hopes to use a part of the state-owned site to accommodate asylum seekers in military-style tents.

Around €30,000 was spent last year and in 2022 to maintain the site, according to figures obtained from the Justice Minister Helen McEntee by Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy.

Over €27,000 has been spent this year alone on maintenance to service chambers on the perimeter of the site by Gas Networks.

These service chambers allow access to cabling and other infrastructure which connect the site to essential services, such as electricity and gas.

The Government is currently carrying out assessments of the site and hopes to house asylum seekers there in the next four to six weeks.

Ms McEntee also told Ms Murphy in a parliamentary question that she was setting up a review group to look at plans for a ‘super prison’ at Thornton Hall.

This suggests that a part of the site will still be used to build a prison and another part of the site will be used to house asylum seekers.

“The review group will review the previous plans to develop a prison at Thornton Hall and consider the part that this available site can play in meeting the future accommodation requirements of the prison system,” Ms McEntee said on May 8.

“It will also have regard to international best practice in effective sanctions and rehabilitative practice and effective alternatives to imprisonment.”

Ms McEntee also told Ms Murphy that a portion of the site will be kept “for any future prison needs” and that another part of the site has been “made available” to other state agencies.

“The Department of Justice has made the Thornton Hall site at north county Dublin available to other agencies,” said Ms McEntee.

Taoiseach Simon Harris said using the Thornton Hall site is “logical”.

“I believe the best thing to do is secure some state land – land in the ownership of this country – and provide space for tented accommodation with access to sanitation,” he said.

“There are a number of potential sites; I’ve heard ones mooted. Thornton Hall is logical in that sense. But it’s a matter for the Department of Integration to come forward with specific proposals in relation to that.”