The Sunday Tribune can reveal that justice minister Michael McDowell has acquired the new land bank to develop road access to the 29.9m Thornton Hall prison site. The move is a significant climbdown by McDowell, who wrote to every member of the RTE Authority last year protesting at a Prime Time report which suggested that the lack of road access raised serious questions about the original site purchase.

Plans for the new road and a new garda station for the area were outlined in a letter circulated to residents by the minister responsible for youth justice, Brian Lenihan, on Wednesday.

Lenihan stated: "Since the government decided to acquire a site for the development of a prison complex at Thornton I have made constant representations to the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell about the need to secure separate road access to the site.

"At all times minister McDowell has indicated that he viewed the existing road network as adequate for access purposes to the new prison. However, he did indicate that if local landowners made an offer which would not increase the cost of the project he would consider the matter.

"I am pleased to announce that an offer of an alternative route from the old N2 has been made."

The new road will run along a line north of the current R130 road at May's Cross from the R130 to the N2.

Plans for the new road mark a u-turn in the government's position on the need for an access road to the new 'super prison', as McDowell has repeatedly said that the existing R130 road is adequate. In response to a parliamentary question from Labour's Joan Burton on 23 November 2005, McDowell said: "The existing road serving the site has been assessed as adequate by the engineers engaged to carry out the site evaluation."

The 2005 Annual Report of the Auditor and Comptroller General published last September outlined that the state had "had not completed certain procedures" when it decided to buy the Thornton Hall site.

"There was no comprehensive costingf of the work that would be necessary after acquisition to enable the site to be used for a secure prison. For example the cost of road widening to serve the Thornton land was not assessed."

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said that less than 10 acres of land had been purchased for under 1m. She said the cost of servicing the existing road would have been 1.5m and that the builders of Thornton Hall agreed to reduce their price to take into account the new land acquired.

McDowell said: "I have always indicated to the local community that if a separate access road could be built more cheaply to keep all prison-related traffic away from schools and houses that I would be open to that."