Thosands of pounds in travel expenses have been paid out to criminals sentenced to community service in Northern Ireland this year, it can be revealed.

Thugs who have broken the law can claim refunds for using public transport and can even request mileage expenses for using their own vehicles while travelling to serve their sentence — and all at the expense of taxpayers.

Figures provided by the Probation Board for Northern Ireland show that almost £40,000 has been paid out since 2003, including £7,500 already this year.

It means criminals can claim refunds for travelling by bus, train and even taxis to their community work, which usually includes tasks such as fence painting or repairing vandalised property.

The Probation Board said it had a statutory obligation to provide transport for people on community service schemes and claimed the expenses were an “insignificant” part of an overall £17m budget.

Strangford Assembly member Simon Hamilton said it was a matter of principle that offenders should instead be repaying their debt to society.

“Travel expenses and mileage are rightly and understandably paid to many people to assist them in paying for travelling associated with their employment,” he said.

“I know that there will be many who will query the payment of travelling expenses or mileage to convicted offenders for going to and from serving their sentences.

“Whether the money is small in comparison to the overall budget or not, there is a principle here and I know that people will say that offenders should be repaying their debt to society and shouldn't have their expenses repaid to them.”

Mark Wallace, the campaign director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said it was a shocking way to use taxpayers’ money and undermined the idea that community service punishments were in the interests of the public.

“It is totally unfair that law-abiding people are being forced to pay the travel expenses of convicted criminals,” he said.

“If these people don’t want to be landed with travel costs to get to their community service work then they should not have committed the crime.”

A spokesman for the Probation Board confirmed that £7,571 in travel expenses was shared between 775 offenders in the last financial year but stressed that this constituted an insignificant fraction of its overall £17.7m expenditure.

The expense bill had fallen from the previous two years, when a total of almost £20,000 was paid out to offenders given community service.

He was unable to provide a breakdown of travel expenses per mode of transport but said most offenders travelled by bus.

And he added: “Where the individual’s own car is used, PBNI allows for mileage incurred at a cost of 25.7p per mile.”