THE NUMBER of sex offenders in Limerick Prison has jumped a massive 170 per cent, it has been revealed.
And each one of them is costing the taxpayer €100,000 a year to keep in prison.
The local figures were released to Ireland South MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú under a freedom of information request to the Irish Prison Service, as part of larger nationwide figures.
The numbers show that as of May 31, 2025, there were 800 sexual offenders in Irish prisons costing the state almost €80million annually to house.
The numbers in Limerick include 146 sex offenders imprisoned, a huge jump from 54 in 2003.
The figures also show that 235 sex offenders were released from Irish Prisons in 2024, an increase of 34 per cent on 2023 when just 175 sex offenders were released.
So far this year, up to May 31 2025, 103 sex offenders were released from Irish prisons.
Ní Mhurchú has raised concerns about the Irish prison system’s ability to rehabilitate sexual offenders and questioned the value for money of spending €80 million of taxpayers’ money every year to house sex offenders that are “not being treated”.
The Building Better Lives Programme was an Irish Prison service treatment programme for sex offenders. Figures provided to Cynthia Ní Mhurchú in August 2024 showed that just eight sex offenders were participating in the programme.
Updated figures from the Irish Prison Service show that only six sexual offenders completed the programme in 2024 before it was eventually cancelled last October.
The Irish Prison Service has since developed a new model of intervention for people who are convicted of a sexual offence called ‘New Chapters’.
The MEP, herself a former family law barrister, has called for a suite of measures to tackle dramatic rises in violence against women which she says should include a review of sentencing for violent crimes against women, advanced training for circuit and district court judges to the sensitivities involved in such cases, more consultation rooms for victims in our courts, and a more victim-centred approach.
She also wants a “thorough investigation into why we have seen tenfold increases in the number of rapes and sexual assaults across every county in Ireland and more focused measures to rehabilitate sexual offenders in prison”.
Ní Mhurchú has said she will be requesting a meeting with Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan to discuss the immediacy of what she has termed “a crisis”.
