Inmates receive €580,000 in loans from prison service for items such as games consoles 

A man holds an Xbox 360 controller. An inmate at Limerick Prison received a loan of €300 to purchase an Xbox games console.

Convicted criminals have received nearly €580,000 in interest-free loans from the Irish Prison Service in the past four years, new figures have revealed.

The loans are provided at the discretion of prison governors and used for a wide variety of purposes, including the purchase of games consoles and stereos.

The Irish Prison Service (IPS) could not provide details of individual transactions but cited tuckshop purchases, clothing, Christmas loans, and family events such as Communions as common reasons for seeking loans.

However, one inmate at the Dóchas Centre borrowed €300 to buy a dog in recent years, while another individual detained at Limerick Prison received a loan of €300 to purchase an Xbox games console.

A total of 9,680 prisoners availed of loans on an interest-free basis between 2019 and 2023, borrowing €579,986. The prison service had successfully recouped all but 1% of the total amount by the end of last year.

Nearly 20% of the money (€105,345) was loaned to inmates at the Dóchas Centre, the female prison on the Mountjoy campus in Dublin, despite the facility having an operational capacity of just 85.

By comparison, the next-highest amount borrowed by inmates was €87,352 at Wheatfield Prison, which can accommodate 540 detainees.

The total amount borrowed and the number of prisoners availing of loans have increased each year since 2019, when 1,896 inmates received just over €113,000.

Last year, the number of borrowers had risen to 3,286 and the amount provided by prisons exceeded €204,200.

Weekly allowance

Every prisoner receives an allowance of between €6.30 and €15.40 per week from the IPS, and can earn more by performing work in areas such as cleaning and laundry. They may also receive money from families and friends.

When an inmate receives a loan from the IPS, a direct debit is set up for repayments from their allowance each Sunday night. The repayment schedule is calculated based on a prisoner’s expected release date. However, if the borrower is released early, they may walk away from the debt.

A spokesman for the IPS confirmed that no interest is charged on the governors’ loans. When asked if this was ultimately costing the Exchequer as it’s foregoing interest that would otherwise be earned on the amount loaned to prisoners, the spokesman said the loans were not funded by the Exchequer. However, the IPS is funded exclusively by central government funds.

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The spokesman said the term of the loans “typically don’t go over a year” and the largest sum borrowed by an inmate during the reference period was €700.

A total of 1,130 prisoners in the Dóchas Centre borrowed €105,345 between 2019 and 2023, while 1,253 inmate at Wheatfield Prison received loans worth €87,352.

Cloverhill Prison provided €68,722 in loans to 2,142 inmates, and Cork Prison provided €53,360 to 1,102 prisoners. The lowest amount borrowed by inmates was €2,210 at Shelton Abbey open prison, where 60 individuals received loans.