With interest, Emerald's costs in the High and Supreme Courts amount to £530,000. Assuming the State's costs were of the same order, and adding the general damages that still have to be decided, the total cost to the public purse is between £1.5 and £2 million. The High Court ordered in 1991 that the Department should reclaim half of the legal costs from the other beef companies in the case, but this has not yet been done.

The Department of Agriculture has consistently maintained that those companies would bear much of the cost. In February 1990 the Department wrote to the beef companies telling them that they would have to share the cost of fighting the case in court.

Joe Walsh told the Dail in June 1994 that 11 meat companies had replied to this letter although, oddly, only three letters surfaced in the court case.

In March 1997 the then secretary of the Department, Michael Dowling, suggested to the Dail's Public Accounts Committee that steps were being taken to get money from the companies.

Yesterday, however, a spokesman for the Department confirmed that, to date, no attempt has been made to recover money from the companies involved. Moves to recover the half-share of the legal costs will now begin, he said. But efforts to recover any of the money paid out in damages are not imminent. So far the Department has merely written to the Chief State Solicitor asking him "to investigate recovery of the damages".