A row has emerged over the cost of the transfer of Michaela McCollum to a jail in Northern Ireland.

The Belfast Newsletter is reporting that Unionists are asking why the UK taxpayer is to pay stg£353,000 (€470,040) in prison costs for a Tyrone drug smuggler, when "Dublin lobbied to return her to Ulster."

Ms McCollum and Scottish woman Melissa Reid were sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for attempting to smuggle 11.5 kilos of cocaine, worth €1.8m, on a flight from Lima to Spain in 2013.

The North's Justice Minister David Ford has revealed that Ms McCollum must pay her airfare - but that the taxpayer would meet her jail costs.

While the UK is willing to accept her back, Peru has not yet decided to release her.

A fundraising web site for Ms McCollum, which is now closed, reportedly raised stg£4,415 (€5,878) of a stg£10,000 (€13,315) target.