Only fools pay fines in Ireland

Fine dodgers sentenced to jail time are released from prison after as little as an hour or two because of a secret government policy, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal. Every day, as many as 20 prisoners are taken to jail, processed – and then swiftly sent home on 'temporary release'. One defaulter, sentenced to a week, was told by gardaí taking him to Mountjoy: 'Don't worry, you'll be home in time for dinner.'

This extraordinary 'revolving door' policy means that a fortune is being spent on transportation to jail, even though these offenders will never spend a night in the cells.

And it means that while the public believes fine defaulters are serving terms for non-payment of debt, they are in fact being let off with a quiet slap on the wrist.

This weekend, Justice Minister Alan Shatter admitted that he was aware of the policy – but claimed the practice was made official by his predecessor Dermot Ahern.

The Irish Prison Service could not say what the average sentence served was for the 8,325 people jailed for non-payment of fines since 2010. But senior prison sources said that for the 1,642 offenders jailed between January and March of this year, the average stay was 'just a couple of hours'.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).