MAGILLIGAN Prison is to close with staff laid off and prisoners shifted to a new facility in Co Antrim.
All inmates will be transferred to powderkeg Maghaberry jail and hundreds of prison officers are expected to lose their jobs.
The plan includes the building of a new block inside the prison estate in Co Antrim.
But building of a new medium security jail has been hampered over a dispute about the ownership of the land.
No date can be set for the closure of Magillligan Jail in Co Derry, until the land dispute is over.
But the jail move is part of a 10-year programme with costs estimated at around £250 million.
In 2007 the then security minister, Paul Goggins, said a new jail would be built on the site of Magilligan but those plans have been scrapped.
And the prison service has instead opted to build on land beside the high-security prison at Maghaberry at a cost of more than £100million.
The plans include transporting all of Magilligan prisoners – around 400 – to the new accommodation block at the high security facility with the help of a private security firm.
More than 300 people still work at the jail and hundreds of prison jobs are expected to go.
The move means Northern Ireland’s most fearsome convicts will be in the same facility as inmates coming from Magilligan’s low security arrangements.
A prison source said told Belfast Live: “The whole thing is a shambles. The prison service does not even know if they own the land the jail is built on, the land they plan to expand the jail on.
“We will have all categories of prisoners in one facility, albeit with a fence or two between them. So you will have murderers, rapists and terrorists banged up with debtors and of course remand prisoners.
“Even without the building work started there’s no proper emergency exit at Maghaberry because the land ownership is disputed and the area where it needs to be has been blocked and unblocked for more than a year as the argument over the ownership of the land limps on.
“Maghaberry man Stephen Boyes says he owns the land because it was left in a trust set up by his grandfather.
“But the prison service claim they are the registered owners of the land.
“Well one of them is wrong and Stephen Boyes is not prepared to lie down and watch what he sees as his family’s heritage and inheritance gobbled up by a government giant trying to get work done and industry giants trying to get business.
“In the meantime, money, time and effort is going into the argument rather than both sides coming to a fair agreement.
“In a prisons estate plan costing around a £250 million, what is £5 or £10 million to pay for the land fair and square.”
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