An investment of £70m is expected to eventually create 400 extra prison places in Northern Ireland.

This will take place over the coming three years and has already been hailed a success at the completion of the first part of ongoing building work.

The new facility at Braid House already means that almost 300 of the anticapted places are now built and in use.

NIO Prisons' Minister Paul Goggins officially opened the new 120-bed unit at Maghaberry Prison at the beginning of February, which he said will accommodate life sentence prisoners.

"In December 2007 I announced that these new facilities reflected the Government's determination to reduce risk and reoffending.

"The staff will be able to use this new location to drive forward an effective programme which will assist prisoners in addressing their offending behaviour.

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"Braid House is a clear indication that Ministers are prepared to back the programme of reform and improvement which is firmly underway in Northern Ireland Prisons," he said today.

The new block, which is located on the Mourne House site at the prison, was built at a cost of £12.2m.

Some 74 prisoners are already located in Braid House and Acting Governor Alan Craig said that more prisoners would be moved into the unit in the coming weeks.

He said: "This new accommodation provides a good location for effective engagement between prisoners and staff.

"While prisoners can benefit from a range of programmes which are delivered by the Prison Service and their partner agencies, the prison officer is the first line of engagement and, arguably, can have the greatest influence on the prisoner.

"For the past couple of months we have been moving prisoners into Braid House on a phased basis. It provides a good platform for the work we do at Maghaberry," he concluded.

Braid House, was constructed to be 'in keeping' with the theme of existing accommodation blocks at Maghaberry Prison.

It features an internal floor space (excluding roof space and plant rooms) of 3,860m2 and approximately 125,000 facing bricks, 900m³ (cubic metres) of in-situ concrete and 1800m³ of precast concrete were used during the construction which took place over 22 months.

(BMcC/GK)