A fashion designer who ran a controversial sewing programme at the prisons in 2014 received €100,000 via a direct order, government documents show.

The amount makes up about a third of all the direct orders issued by the prison authorities so far this legislature.

A breakdown of Corradino Correctional Facility’s direct orders over the past three years shows that Mary Grace Pisani, a designer known for dressing Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s wife, Michelle, or, rather, her fashion label, Fersani, was paid €107,648 following the programme for inmates.

The information was given in Parliament by Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela when replying to a question tabled by Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami.

OPINION: Curtains are an insult to art and inmates

This newspaper reported last year that prisoners had been engaged to sew curtains as part of a programme endorsed by Mrs Muscat’s charity organisation, the Marigold Foundation.

The programme came under fire after inmates complained they had not received thousands of euros in payment for their services. The issue was eventually resolved.

This newspaper made a number of unsuccessful attempts to contact Ms Pisani about the programme and the payment her company received.

All inmates concerned were duly paid for the supervised practical curtain making

No replies were forthcoming when a spokeswoman for the Home Affairs Ministry was asked why the material had been purchased from Ms Pisani.

The ministry was also asked whether the material had been purchased from Ms Pisani at market or cost price.

The spokeswoman would only say that the material had been used in “practical lessons” in which inmates produced curtains for a number of wards at St Vincent de Paul Hospital.

The cost of the material, the accessories and the installation of the curtains had been covered by the hospital, the spokeswoman said.

No reason was given why the direct order had been issued by the prison rather than the hospital.

Curtain fabric retailers contacted by this newspaper said they would not sell the material for anything less than €10 per metre. Based on such a rate and excluding the cost of curtain rods and rails, the prison would have paid for about 10 kilometres of curtain material, enough to cover the distance between Valletta to Mdina.

Although it was not clear whether the material had been purchased for the controversial programme linked to Ms Muscat’s charity, the spokeswoman said there “were no outstanding bills regarding this project and all inmates concerned were duly paid for the supervised practical curtain making”.

The project may not have been a one-off as the spokeswoman said that the correctional facility’s administration had offered male and female inmates the chance to enrol in “soft furnishings and ladies and gents tailoring” courses. She did not say who was running the course and questions on the matter remained unanswered.

It was only said that 13 inmates were participating in the new courses.

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