257 Mr. Barry asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the total cost to the Exchequer of the beef tribunal; the amounts paid by his Department to persons claiming fees, expenses and others as a result of the holding of the inquiry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5681/96]

The total payments made to date by my Department in respect of the beef tribunal are £7,547,985.63. A table showing the payments follows.

In addition to these payments the tribunal made a total of 77 costs orders which are subject to taxation by a Taxing Master of the High Court.

To date 21 bills totalling approximately £10.532 million have been lodged with the office of the Chief State Solicitor or the Taxing Master. Of these 11 have been referred back to the claimants to present their bills in a proper format for taxing.

The hearing by the Taxing Master began on 11 October 1995. Following the hearing by the Taxing Master it remains open to the State to raise objections to the amounts awarded if necessary by way of appeals to the High Court and Supreme Court. As this process is not yet finalised it is not possible to say what the final cost to the Exchequer will be.

An index of all the costs orders made by the beef tribunal is contained in chapter 26 of the report of the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Beef Processing Industry and in Appendix three of the same document a list of all the legal representation before the tribunal is given.

Beef Tribunal Expenditure