The Central Bank has exchanged almost €1.5 million worth of old pound notes and coins over the past three years which people had stashed away since the introduction of the euro.
Figures from the bank show that €1.15 million worth of notes and €341,000 worth of coins were rooted out from under mattresses, coin jars, safes, and coffers since the beginning of 2022.
It’s been more than twenty years since the euro was introduced in Ireland, but the Central Bank still offers an exchange at the fixed rate of €1.27 for each old pound.
A log of the twenty highest transactions shows that individuals swapped out punts that were worth between €9,313 and just over €25,000. The single biggest exchange was the €25,204 – or IR£19,850 in old money – that one person received after a profitable trip to the Central Bank. There was also a swap of IR£19,000 and four further transactions that were worth more than IR£15,000 in value.
Altogether, 2,338 separate exchanges took place since the start of 2022 with some worth only nominal amounts.
The value of exchanges also appears to be falling by the year, according to figures provided under Freedom of Information laws. In 2022, €625,000 worth of euros were handed out by the Central Bank in exchange for just over IR£492,000 in old notes and coins. By last year, the full annual total was €533,028 or almost IR£420,000 in punts. In the first eight months of this year, just €336,000 has been exchanged, which suggests the final figure for 2024 is likely to be in the region of €500,000.
A notable feature of the currency exchanges so far this year is that nearly 30 per cent of all the money swapped out was in coins rather than notes.
The Central Bank said there has not had any discussions over ending the availability of conversion for punts, it said.
The service is available for damaged notes as well, and exchanges are only refused where notes have been intentionally damaged, where a criminal offence is suspected, or in cases of counterfeiting. The bank said that they had declined to exchange punts on only four occasions since the start of 2022 due to severity of damage or other reasons. They also said they did not keep data on how much of the €1.5 million in total exchanges involved damaged notes or coins.
A spokeswoman said: “The Central Bank is very happy to provide an exchange service for old Irish pound notes or coins. “We know that people find old Irish pounds all the time and may not even realise they or a family member had it. “There is no time limit on the exchange service, so anybody who would like to exchange old Irish pounds, or damaged euro notes or coins, can submit them at any stage.”
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