Unpaid fines leave NI libraries well red

EXCLUSIVE By Nigel Gould

Fines totalling £120,000 for overdue library books across Northern Ireland have not been paid, we can reveal today.

During the last three years nearly 166,000 books have not been returned on time to public libraries.

Around 280,000 fines were dished out totalling £337,000.

But figures obtained by Downtown and Cool FM show clearly that libraries

have not recouped anywhere near this amount.

And in this year, alone, fines worth nearly 50,000 pounds are still outstanding from a value of almost £155,000.

Our statistics from a Freedom of Information request also reveal that the longest time for a book to be returned was a shock 1071 days.

That was in 2014-15 – to date this year a borrowed book was handed back after 336 days.

The figures show further the extent of book borrowing.

Over the last year there were just over 195,000 borrower IDs issued – a small reduction on the totals from the previous two years.

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