Prisoners paid £15 a week and spend £350,000 in tuck shop

PRISONERS in Magilligan jail received around £15 per week in wages and spent a total of £359,387.54 in the prison tuck shop last year.
By The Newsroom
Published 28th Oct 2010, 14:55 BST

Inmates worked an average of twenty-hours per week across the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) and those incarcerated in County Londonderry were better paid than elsewhere despite suffering a dip in wages over recent years.

Prisoners at Point Road used to be paid an average of 15.87 per week five years ago but last year received an average of around 14.58. This was higher than the average across NIPS which was 12.

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Over the past five years the turnover at the prison tuck shop was also fairly considerable with prisoners spending 1,665,346.63 between 2005 and 2010 on a range of items including, groceries, sweets, stationery, tobacco, electrical and audio items and toiletries.

Spending at the Magilligan tuck shop rose to a high of 369,132 in 2008/9 dipping back to 359,387 last year.

Justice Minister David Ford outlined the figures in response to an Assembly Question.